The theory that Covid leaked from a lab in Wuhan was originally dismissed by the liberal media as a conspiracy theory by the Trump administration and conservative media like Fox News. In India, Sr Advocate Adish Agarwala filed a complaint to UNHRC calling Covid a Chinese bioweapon, but was mocked by liberals on social media for it. https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/pdf_upload-372096.pdf
It would be interesting to know what LI readers (who are overwhelmingly liberal) think. Are you now willing to concede it that it came from a lab and may have been a leaked bioweapon? In other words, that the Trump administration and conservative media was right all along?
This important both from a political and legal perspective. Politically, it shifts blame on Xi Jinping from Modi. Legally, it is a grave violation of international law.
How does it shift blame from Modi to Jinping ? The virus did not originate in India and nobody is blaming Modi for that. Modi is blamed for poor handling of the pandemic, holding political rallies with no social distancing in place and promoting kumb mela.
No, I think it was an unused bioweapon that Ravan of Lanka had designed in the event of a siege. However, when Hanuman had wreaked havoc on the city, the person who was in charge of releasing the weapon perished in the fire. So even when Ram and his Vanar Sena laid siege to Lanka, it didn't get used. However, Ravan had before his death used his ancient scientific temperament to create a social trigger that whenever the people of Ayodhya would display extra special bhakti to Ram beyond reason, the weapon would be released. It was to be Ravan's version of delayed revenge. But the people of Ayodhya never displayed that level of bhakti, because of the Sita episode and because they actually considered Ram as only a reasonable human king, even if he made occasional mistakes. Now that aided by the lawmakers, law enforcers, and law interpreters, a bulk of the country including the people of erstwhile Ayodhya ended up displaying such bhakti and tried to erect a large-ass temple as an in-your-face mark of it, the old dormant weapon, undiminished in power and ancient potency, got released, and is currently afflicting the whole world. It's all our fault, if you would only think about it.
Because the commentator has made it amply clear that he is joking. RW trolls usually mean the ridiculous things that they say, which is often horrific.
Quick moderation note: In responses and speculation, please keep on topic and to facts. The reports cited above seem to primarily be based on one individual's speculation and opinion rather than factually supported and agreed to by scientists and experts at this point.
It's worth trying to apply Occam's razor here, as in many similar theories, in that the simplest explanation being more likely than elaborate webs of conspiracy.
1. There is a lot of medical and scientific research that Covid-19 is very similar to coronaviruses actually found in bats in the wild, where they mutate fast and such viruses do and have regularly jumped across species to humans, so there is a very plausible explanation that this virus was not engineered and the vast majority of scientists currently still agree with this assessment. Also worth considering what rationale would scientists studying this stuff for years and decades have in this case not to happily blame China if they've found evidence for this already? 'Liberals' are happy to blame China for human rights abuses, such as prison camps and freedom issues, so why would (even left-leaning) scientists censor themselves if they found any evidence for the China lab theory? https://theconversation.com/heres-how-scientists-know-the-coronavirus-came-from-bats-and-wasnt-made-in-a-lab-141850
2. Is it theoretically possible the Wuhan lab was studying these viruses and they managed to escape? Sure, you probably can't 100% rule that out at this point (though you can't rule out that aliens created it, or that the Illuminati or some international terrorists secretly engineered / released the virus in China to sow chaos). But is there any actual proof or hard evidence of this? Or does it seem much more likely that the theory was claimed as fact by Trump (who infamously cares as little for facts as does the CCP) because he wanted to blame China politically?
3. Even in the event that it is true and the virus did escape from a Chinese lab, does that make it a bioweapon that China intentionally released on the world? That seems unlikely, especially considering that for a bioweapon, Covid-19 spreads so easily and uncontrollably as to be almost useless, as you can't use it without infecting the entire world and yourself. As far as grand plans and conspiracies for world domination go, this one is a hugely tricky and risky one to pull off, and could have been carried out in a far more cloak and dagger way as to be not so obviously undetectable.
4. If we want to assume that the virus did escape from a Chinese lab, for argument's sake, the more likely explanation would be that it accidentally escaped. In that case, would the liability for that be on par with Chernobyl, Fukushima or countries responsible for climate change? And who would that liability attach to? The individual lab or workers there for potential negligence? Or the Chinese government for not having strict enough safety rules in place for virus research? Or just strict liability? We would welcome opinion from international lawyers on this point.
Liberals and Liberal media has ruined everything. Even when Modiji cam with the master plan of 130 crore Indians lighting candle together which would have increased the world temperature by 10 degrees and funished off covid, these liberal anti-nationals kept their fridge doors open which saved covid virus. This has also been confirmed by Mr. Devoram Chaurasiya, chairman of UNESCO.
I wonder if these developments from the past few days will make liberals reconsider their views on the origin of Covid, or whether their blind hatred of Trump will continue to make them endorse the WHO-China joint "study" that Covid came naturally:
- From MIT Technology Review: "Now, in a letter in the journal Science, 18 prominent biologists—including the world’s foremost coronavirus researcher—are lending their weight to calls for a new investigation of all possible origins of the virus, and calling on China’s laboratories and agencies to “open their records” to independent analysis. “We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data,” the scientists write." https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/05/13/1024866/investigation-covid-origin-wuhan-china-lab-biologists-letter/
There are several separate things at play here that are often conflated, including in the OP. Whether you believe that it is a Chinese bioweapon is neither here nor there and not the real question. The actual realities are the following.
1. Did China obstruct the WHO and other investigations into the origin of the virus? Yes, most probably.
2. Is there currently any actual evidence it was an intentionally or accidentally released bioweapon, beyond the circumstantial? Not really.
3. Do we know for sure that it has not escaped from a Chinese lab? No, unless you're Donald Trump.
4. Should Trump or others have been making the claim that they believe it was a bioweapon without such evidence, purely on the basis that they hope it is a possibility? Seems like a primitive way of doing diplomacy.
5. If China doesn't want to cooperate in an investigation, how exactly is the global community going to force it to cooperate or muster the political will to do so? Answers on a postcard.
6. Considering much of the world is still fighting the pandemic and will be for some time yet, would anyone really have the political will to confront China over this, when people are dependent on Chinese vaccines, and risk a global trade war on the precipice of a possible economic crisis? Outlook not likely.
7. Even if it were eventually proved that China manufactured the virus and released it accidentally, exactly what is the world going to be able to do about it, much as the world has not been able to do much to stop human rights abuses in China for decades, its annexation of territory, claims over Taiwan, its Belt & Road diplomacy strategy, militarisation of the seas, being the world's largest greenhouse gas polluter and so on... Exactly.
Please Kian, there are enough Chinese assets overseas that the world can expropriate. Everything doesn’t have to end in a mushroom cloud - there are several steps that can be taken, short of nuclear Holocaust.
Even ignoring any outright WW3 possibilities, how would that scenario play out positively and happily for everyone? The Taiwanese for one might be getting quite worried about their future... What about the trillion-odd dollars of sovereign debt the US owes the Chinese? And how might China retaliate, economically or otherwise? And how would you begin to assess how much of China's foreign assets will be expropriated? And do you do this if China continues to refuse full inspections? Or only if a smoking gun is found that a lab did intentionally or accidentally release a virus? And how would you implement this? Via the UN Security Council where China has a veto? The US by itself? Loose multilateral alliances of countries where the benefit in punishing China may not be clear to any one of them?
We're always happy to hear constructive suggestions and thoughts.
The laboratory leak theory also deserves more careful scrutiny. This is not to stigmatize Asians or to bash China, nor to embrace the Trump administration’s use of the laboratory leak theory to divert attention from its failures. The reason to investigate is the persistence of unanswered questions about research being carried out at the Wuhan institute under Shi Zhengli to modify viral genomes to give them new properties, such as the ability to infect a new host species or transmit from one host to another more easily. The research involved testing novel chimeric viruses with different spike proteins, like that on the pandemic coronavirus strain, using “humanized” mice, with cells modified to resemble human respiratory cells.
Did some byproduct of the research leak, or did workers become inadvertently infected? Was the research carried out in less protected BSL-2 laboratories instead of the more secure BSL-4? Did Dr. Shi successfully manipulate a virus in the lab to add genetic features boosting affinity for human cells, as science journalist Nicholas Wade has suggested in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists? These and other questions have been met with stout denials and roadblocks from China. In response to the Science letter, which called for opening records of research labs, Dr. Shi said, “It’s definitely not acceptable,” and, “Who can provide an evidence that does not exist?”
That brings us no closer to identifying the pandemic’s origins. If the laboratory leak theory is wrong, China could easily clarify the situation by being more open and transparent. Instead, it acts as if there is something to hide.
Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care in November 2019, months before China disclosed the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing a previously undisclosed US intelligence report.
The newspaper said the report – which provides fresh details on the number of researchers affected, the timing of their illnesses, and their hospital visits – may add weight to calls for a broader probe of whether the COVID-19 virus could have escaped from the laboratory.
I agree with you call. We must send our premier investigating agency, the CBI, to investigate this. Maybe we can also hire Abhishek Bachchan and team considering their expertise in dealing with international crimes. Tiger Zinda Hai. Jai Hind.
There's no doubt that much of the American corporate news media (which, with the exception of Fox News usually should not qualify as 'news', tends to lean slightly-left-of-centre), has been going through a bit of a crisis of faith and purpose in the Trump years. And they definitely have their own agenda and many have also lost some perspective and impartiality in respect of Trump and his supporters (which is understandable when every other word coming out of his mouth was seemingly a distortion of facts).
But the 'bioweapon' theory that Covid was intentionally released remains a conspiracy theory, and the 'accidentally escaped from a lab' theory is also just that at present, a theory.
But yes, more impartial investigations of its origins should happen. Will they? Probably not any time soon.
Kian, you nicely swallowed liberal propaganda that Covid is a natural virus. Now you will have to eat humble pie, just like Facebook/Twitter/NYT/CNN have done in the past few days. Meanwhile, today's big headline is this:
- An explosive new study claims researchers found 'unique fingerprints' in COVID-19 samples that they say could only have arisen from manipulation in a laboratory - DailyMail.com exclusively obtained the new 22-page paper authored by British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen set to be published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery - The study showed there's evidence to suggest Chinese scientists created the virus while working on a Gain of Function project in a Wuhan lab -Gain of Function research, which was temporarily outlawed in the US, involves altering naturally-occurring viruses to make them more infectious in order to study their potential effects on humans - According to the paper, Chinese scientists took a natural coronavirus 'backbone' found in Chinese cave bats and spliced onto it a new 'spike', turning it into the deadly and highly transmissible COVID-19 The researchers, who concluded that COVID-19 'has no credible natural ancestor', also believe scientists reverse-engineered versions of the virus to cover up their tracks - 'We think that there have been retro-engineered viruses created,' Dalgleish told DailyMail.com. 'They've changed the virus, then tried to make out it was in a sequence years ago.' - The study also points to 'deliberate destruction, concealment or contamination of data' in Chinese labs and notes that 'scientists who wished to share their findings haven't been able to do so or have disappeared' - Until recently, most experts had staunchly denied the origins of the virus were anything other than a natural infection leaping from animals to humans - Earlier this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci defended US funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, saying the $600,000 grant was not approved for Gain of Function research
However, the crux is that 'bioweapon unleashed by China' still remains just a theory without any actual proof. That paper by the Daily Mail does not yet appear to have been peer reviewed or published yet. And even from the abstract published it does seem like it is largely circumstantial speculation that explicitly states "absolute proof can not be provided", and they "assess hypotheses" and "reasonable deduction". None of us in this thread are virologists, but the abstract's conclusion basically says that more research needs to be done (and that by their arguments, those claiming a zoonotic origin need more "persuasive evidence" before their theory can be accepted).
The Daily Mail headline seems rather more sensational than the abstract would suggest. And the authors of the paper seem to have previously, in 2020, also over-sold the conclusions of a Covid-China paper pre-publication in the media, with the eventually peer-reviewed article not containing the same explosive facts: https://fullfact.org/health/richard-dearlove-coronavirus-claims/ (one co-authors is also a UKIP politician, which does not necessarily bode well for scientific independence).
In short, the original points stand: until an actual open investigation of the Wuhan lab, it will be hard if not impossible to prove or disprove either theory, though the zoonotic theory is still the most likely and accepted as most plausible by most scientists.
But yes, scientists should keep investigating and researching. And a full fact-finding investigation should be carried out in China. But whether that will happen is largely politicised at this point, as is the 'Covid bioweapon' theory itself.
https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/pdf_upload-372096.pdf
But in the past month some startling developments have occurred. Firstly, former CDC director and world famous virologist Dr Robert Redfield told CNN's Dr Sanjay Gupta that he thinks Covid leaked from the Wuhan lab after all.
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/health/2021/03/26/sanjay-gupta-exclusive-robert-redfield-coronavirus-opinion-origin-sot-intv-newday-vpx.cnn
Secondly, Dr Sanjay Gupta agreed with Redfield and thus went against CNN's policy of saying that Covid did not come from a lab.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/cnn-s-sanjay-gupta-breaks-with-his-network-and-backs-wuhan-lab-theory/ar-BB1fzKfo
Thirdly, an investigation by the Daily Mail found that the Chinese Army has been conducting research at the Wuhan lab.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9507749/How-scientists-Wuhan-lab-helped-Chinese-army-secret-project-animal-viruses.html
It would be interesting to know what LI readers (who are overwhelmingly liberal) think. Are you now willing to concede it that it came from a lab and may have been a leaked bioweapon? In other words, that the Trump administration and conservative media was right all along?
This important both from a political and legal perspective. Politically, it shifts blame on Xi Jinping from Modi. Legally, it is a grave violation of international law.
Now that aided by the lawmakers, law enforcers, and law interpreters, a bulk of the country including the people of erstwhile Ayodhya ended up displaying such bhakti and tried to erect a large-ass temple as an in-your-face mark of it, the old dormant weapon, undiminished in power and ancient potency, got released, and is currently afflicting the whole world. It's all our fault, if you would only think about it.
It's worth trying to apply Occam's razor here, as in many similar theories, in that the simplest explanation being more likely than elaborate webs of conspiracy.
1. There is a lot of medical and scientific research that Covid-19 is very similar to coronaviruses actually found in bats in the wild, where they mutate fast and such viruses do and have regularly jumped across species to humans, so there is a very plausible explanation that this virus was not engineered and the vast majority of scientists currently still agree with this assessment. Also worth considering what rationale would scientists studying this stuff for years and decades have in this case not to happily blame China if they've found evidence for this already? 'Liberals' are happy to blame China for human rights abuses, such as prison camps and freedom issues, so why would (even left-leaning) scientists censor themselves if they found any evidence for the China lab theory?
https://theconversation.com/heres-how-scientists-know-the-coronavirus-came-from-bats-and-wasnt-made-in-a-lab-141850
2. Is it theoretically possible the Wuhan lab was studying these viruses and they managed to escape? Sure, you probably can't 100% rule that out at this point (though you can't rule out that aliens created it, or that the Illuminati or some international terrorists secretly engineered / released the virus in China to sow chaos). But is there any actual proof or hard evidence of this? Or does it seem much more likely that the theory was claimed as fact by Trump (who infamously cares as little for facts as does the CCP) because he wanted to blame China politically?
3. Even in the event that it is true and the virus did escape from a Chinese lab, does that make it a bioweapon that China intentionally released on the world? That seems unlikely, especially considering that for a bioweapon, Covid-19 spreads so easily and uncontrollably as to be almost useless, as you can't use it without infecting the entire world and yourself. As far as grand plans and conspiracies for world domination go, this one is a hugely tricky and risky one to pull off, and could have been carried out in a far more cloak and dagger way as to be not so obviously undetectable.
4. If we want to assume that the virus did escape from a Chinese lab, for argument's sake, the more likely explanation would be that it accidentally escaped. In that case, would the liability for that be on par with Chernobyl, Fukushima or countries responsible for climate change? And who would that liability attach to? The individual lab or workers there for potential negligence? Or the Chinese government for not having strict enough safety rules in place for virus research? Or just strict liability? We would welcome opinion from international lawyers on this point.
Even when Modiji cam with the master plan of 130 crore Indians lighting candle together which would have increased the world temperature by 10 degrees and funished off covid, these liberal anti-nationals kept their fridge doors open which saved covid virus.
This has also been confirmed by Mr. Devoram Chaurasiya, chairman of UNESCO.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/congress-is-finally-investigating-the-lab-accident-covid-19-origin-theory/2021/05/06/d7bfb0e4-aeaf-11eb-b476-c3b287e52a01_story.html
- From MIT Technology Review: "Now, in a letter in the journal Science, 18 prominent biologists—including the world’s foremost coronavirus researcher—are lending their weight to calls for a new investigation of all possible origins of the virus, and calling on China’s laboratories and agencies to “open their records” to independent analysis. “We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data,” the scientists write."
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/05/13/1024866/investigation-covid-origin-wuhan-china-lab-biologists-letter/
- Former NYT Science correspondent Nicholas Wade suggests lab leak theory strong. Our very own left-wing website the Wire has published his article: https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/origins-of-covid-19-who-opened-pandoras-box-at-wuhan-people-or-nature/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/science/virus-origins-lab-leak-scientists.html
Hmmm....
1. Did China obstruct the WHO and other investigations into the origin of the virus? Yes, most probably.
2. Is there currently any actual evidence it was an intentionally or accidentally released bioweapon, beyond the circumstantial? Not really.
3. Do we know for sure that it has not escaped from a Chinese lab? No, unless you're Donald Trump.
4. Should Trump or others have been making the claim that they believe it was a bioweapon without such evidence, purely on the basis that they hope it is a possibility? Seems like a primitive way of doing diplomacy.
5. If China doesn't want to cooperate in an investigation, how exactly is the global community going to force it to cooperate or muster the political will to do so? Answers on a postcard.
6. Considering much of the world is still fighting the pandemic and will be for some time yet, would anyone really have the political will to confront China over this, when people are dependent on Chinese vaccines, and risk a global trade war on the precipice of a possible economic crisis? Outlook not likely.
7. Even if it were eventually proved that China manufactured the virus and released it accidentally, exactly what is the world going to be able to do about it, much as the world has not been able to do much to stop human rights abuses in China for decades, its annexation of territory, claims over Taiwan, its Belt & Road diplomacy strategy, militarisation of the seas, being the world's largest greenhouse gas polluter and so on... Exactly.
Even ignoring any outright WW3 possibilities, how would that scenario play out positively and happily for everyone? The Taiwanese for one might be getting quite worried about their future... What about the trillion-odd dollars of sovereign debt the US owes the Chinese? And how might China retaliate, economically or otherwise? And how would you begin to assess how much of China's foreign assets will be expropriated? And do you do this if China continues to refuse full inspections? Or only if a smoking gun is found that a lab did intentionally or accidentally release a virus? And how would you implement this? Via the UN Security Council where China has a veto? The US by itself? Loose multilateral alliances of countries where the benefit in punishing China may not be clear to any one of them?
We're always happy to hear constructive suggestions and thoughts.
The laboratory leak theory also deserves more careful scrutiny. This is not to stigmatize Asians or to bash China, nor to embrace the Trump administration’s use of the laboratory leak theory to divert attention from its failures. The reason to investigate is the persistence of unanswered questions about research being carried out at the Wuhan institute under Shi Zhengli to modify viral genomes to give them new properties, such as the ability to infect a new host species or transmit from one host to another more easily. The research involved testing novel chimeric viruses with different spike proteins, like that on the pandemic coronavirus strain, using “humanized” mice, with cells modified to resemble human respiratory cells.
Did some byproduct of the research leak, or did workers become inadvertently infected? Was the research carried out in less protected BSL-2 laboratories instead of the more secure BSL-4? Did Dr. Shi successfully manipulate a virus in the lab to add genetic features boosting affinity for human cells, as science journalist Nicholas Wade has suggested in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists? These and other questions have been met with stout denials and roadblocks from China. In response to the Science letter, which called for opening records of research labs, Dr. Shi said, “It’s definitely not acceptable,” and, “Who can provide an evidence that does not exist?”
That brings us no closer to identifying the pandemic’s origins. If the laboratory leak theory is wrong, China could easily clarify the situation by being more open and transparent. Instead, it acts as if there is something to hide.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/two-possible-theories-of-the-pandemics-origins-remain-viable-the-world-needs-to-know/2021/05/17/b87f0b0e-b737-11eb-96b9-e949d5397de9_story.html
Quote: https://thewire.in/health/wuhan-lab-staff-hospital-covid-19-origin
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/05/lab-leak-liberal-media-theory-china-wuhan-lab-cotton-trump.html
But the 'bioweapon' theory that Covid was intentionally released remains a conspiracy theory, and the 'accidentally escaped from a lab' theory is also just that at present, a theory.
But yes, more impartial investigations of its origins should happen. Will they? Probably not any time soon.
https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/the-question-remains-was-it-meant-to-be-a-bioweapon-988901.html
- An explosive new study claims researchers found 'unique fingerprints' in COVID-19 samples that they say could only have arisen from manipulation in a laboratory
- DailyMail.com exclusively obtained the new 22-page paper authored by British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen set to be published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery
- The study showed there's evidence to suggest Chinese scientists created the virus while working on a Gain of Function project in a Wuhan lab
-Gain of Function research, which was temporarily outlawed in the US, involves altering naturally-occurring viruses to make them more infectious in order to study their potential effects on humans
- According to the paper, Chinese scientists took a natural coronavirus 'backbone' found in Chinese cave bats and spliced onto it a new 'spike', turning it into the deadly and highly transmissible COVID-19
The researchers, who concluded that COVID-19 'has no credible natural ancestor', also believe scientists reverse-engineered versions of the virus to cover up their tracks
- 'We think that there have been retro-engineered viruses created,' Dalgleish told DailyMail.com. 'They've changed the virus, then tried to make out it was in a sequence years ago.'
- The study also points to 'deliberate destruction, concealment or contamination of data' in Chinese labs and notes that 'scientists who wished to share their findings haven't been able to do so or have disappeared'
- Until recently, most experts had staunchly denied the origins of the virus were anything other than a natural infection leaping from animals to humans
- Earlier this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci defended US funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, saying the $600,000 grant was not approved for Gain of Function research
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9629563/Chinese-scientists-created-COVID-19-lab-tried-cover-tracks-new-study-claims.html
However, the crux is that 'bioweapon unleashed by China' still remains just a theory without any actual proof. That paper by the Daily Mail does not yet appear to have been peer reviewed or published yet. And even from the abstract published it does seem like it is largely circumstantial speculation that explicitly states "absolute proof can not be provided", and they "assess hypotheses" and "reasonable deduction". None of us in this thread are virologists, but the abstract's conclusion basically says that more research needs to be done (and that by their arguments, those claiming a zoonotic origin need more "persuasive evidence" before their theory can be accepted).
The Daily Mail headline seems rather more sensational than the abstract would suggest. And the authors of the paper seem to have previously, in 2020, also over-sold the conclusions of a Covid-China paper pre-publication in the media, with the eventually peer-reviewed article not containing the same explosive facts: https://fullfact.org/health/richard-dearlove-coronavirus-claims/ (one co-authors is also a UKIP politician, which does not necessarily bode well for scientific independence).
In short, the original points stand: until an actual open investigation of the Wuhan lab, it will be hard if not impossible to prove or disprove either theory, though the zoonotic theory is still the most likely and accepted as most plausible by most scientists.
But yes, scientists should keep investigating and researching. And a full fact-finding investigation should be carried out in China. But whether that will happen is largely politicised at this point, as is the 'Covid bioweapon' theory itself.