Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 120 points – Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic
apnews.com

The Chinese government froze meaningful efforts to trace the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, despite publicly declaring it supported an open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The AP drew on thousands of pages of undisclosed emails and documents, leaked recordings, and dozens of interviews that showed the freeze began far earlier than previously known — in the first weeks of the outbreak — and involved political and scientific infighting in China as much as international finger-pointing.

Crucial initial efforts were hindered by bureaucrats in Wuhan trying to avoid blame who misled the central government; the central government, which silenced Chinese scientists and subjected visiting U.N. officials to stage-managed tours; and the World Health Organization itself, which may have compromised early opportunities to gather critical information, according to internal materials obtained by AP.

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It’s because it came out of a Chinese biological warfare lab, and they just don’t want to catch the blame for it. I get that the official story is that it came from a Chinese wet market, which I will admit is a possibility, until it’s also mentioned that it’s in the same city as a Biological warfare lab. Then that option is no longer an option.

It's not a biological warfare lab, it's a research lab and having a coronavirus research lab in the place where coronaviruses originate is the most obvious fucking thing in the world.

I imagine you must think all of the earthquake research labs in California cause earthquakes. And Japan's tsunami research labs cause tsunamis. And the Ebola research labs in Africa cause Ebola.

I can't tell if you're right because you are not telling me what I should think, what if I have a thought? Will it hurt? I prefer when the people on TV tell me who to be afraid of, what is this new type of thinking? It's scary. /s

Also it came out right around the time democracy protests were ramping up in China. I'm not one for conspiracy theories but these circumstances don't look good.

It came from the lab in Wuhan that was being funded by the US Government. There is absolutely zero question of that 2nd part either, it's in the official US Government finance records. That means both the U.S. and China want the origins kept under wraps.

Actually, it came from Betelgeuse aboard a Klactic-class star freighter. Deepak Chopra is in on it and should be tried and punished.

Cute but I was actually being serious. I probably should go back and link the .gov site showing the funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There’s no question that the US was funding work on coronavirus in that lab and that China knew about it.

yes dude link it that's what the people want

Okay. These are all links directly to the NIH.GOV grant system. Every one of the listed grants went to "EcoHealth Alliance" and you can see what projects / research the money was being spent on by clicking the Data tab on the right. What you're going to find in the data tab is project number 5R01AI110964-05 titled "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence"

Here's a direct link to the description of that project.

Here's the grant / funding links.

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Lol these are grants. Guess what, we've been funding research into corona viruses ever since the first SARS outbreak...which came from a wet market in Wuhan.

What you need to link is physical evidence showing that COVID-19 was in the lab prior to the outbreak, or that the COVID-19 sequence is comprised of two or more sequences from viruses stockpiled in the lab (it is a surveillance lab).

You do not have that evidence. You do not understand how viral labs work. You do not even understand how science funding works. You are the kind of person that believes a highly controlled lab environment with trained personnel is more likely to spread disease than a dense market place where known viral reservoirs are slaughtered in open air by any moron with a blade.

Lol these are grants.

Yes, they are. Which is precisely what I claimed in my first comment. The US Government was funding research into Coronavirus at that Lab and that both US and Chinese Officials were aware of it.

You are the kind of person that believes a highly controlled lab environment with trained personnel

We're obviously not talking about the same lab.

I'd love to link you to Director Chen's full safety assessment of the lab in Wuhan but it was completely redacted by HHS. So were back to both the original article and my original comment.

You can insult me all you like but it's terribly convenient that all of the evidence someone would need to nail this down is unavailable.

For funsies why don't you try and track down the original samples taken by Wuhan University back in the earliest days. I'll bet you can't more than about 14 of the 240ish that existed.

Where is the safety report for the Wuhan wetmarket? You know the one that unequivocally started one viral pandemic? Then, while closed down, we enjoyed a period with no new coronavirus pandemics? And then, shortly after reopening, there was another coronavirus pandemic originating in Wuhan? That wetmarket, you have a report on that one?

I think the part that always pissed me off more is that it doesn't really matter where it came from! No one is really trying to let out a virus to ravage the planet... Unless they're a bond villain.

We need to figure out where it came from because it's important to prevent it happening in the future but politicizing it was always pretty fixing stupid.

What is more important is we have a new virus that is brutal and we need to stop or show its spread. My parents were on the Fox News bandwagon and would always tell me that I believe they're crazy for thinking it came from China. I tried so many times to explain to them, it doesn't matter where it came from, it's out, in the global population, and we need to try to mitigate and prevent damage.

We need to figure out where it came from because it’s important to prevent it happening in the future but politicizing it was always pretty fixing stupid.

I completely agree. The politicization of the Pandemic was the dumbest and deadliest thing I've seen in my 50 years of life.

So are people downvoting this because it's incorrect or because they just don't like what's being said?

They're being downvoted because it's conspiracy nonsense. The lab in question was funded by the US because it was part of joint pandemic preparedness studies, and its location was near Wuhan because it was a likely place for an outbreak to occur. They studied the coronavirus because scientists have been warning us for a long time that a coronavirus strain crossing species and becoming a global pandemic is an inevitability.

Could COVID be from a lab leak? Sure, it's possible. But it would almost certainly have been accidental, not some grand conspiracy to kill millions and devastate the global economy they rely on. The more obvious culprit is the wet markets nearby where animals and their carcasses are handled by the public, providing ample opportunity for a mutated virus to infect an unlucky someone. China cracking down on an investigation is unsurprising if you know anything about their government. It's just China being China.

It's because my comment is too close to Republican talking points so they're knee jerking. I'm not a Republican and the evidence of what I'm saying regarding funding is absolutely available from official government sources. I posted a follow on comment with links directly to the us government grant system.

https://lemmy.today/comment/7839801