That sound would likely have been detected in the social media ether this weekend by the gnashing of teeth from COVID conspiracy theorists, outraged by a U. S. government report. U. S. government that debunks its ultimate beloved claims.
The long-awaited report released Friday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, refuted the theory that the Sars-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID, leaked from a virology lab in Wuhan, China, where the disease was first detected. detected in humans.
The lab leak conspirators were confident that the report would validate their claims, for which there was never valid clinical evidence.
Instead, it did the opposite.
While several researchers [from the Wuhan Institute of Virology] fell ill in the fall of 2019, they presented. . . symptoms consistent with a lack of blood or allergies.
U. S. agencies U. S. They debunk the real fact loved through the conspiracy theorists of laboratory leaks
The report released in reaction to the COVID-19 Origin Act, which became law through President Biden in March. The law required the intelligence network to declassify all data on the subject in its possession, to record data that could compromise national security. or intelligence-gathering resources and strategies.
If you believe that other people would be satisfied with the report’s conclusion that there is nothing in its claims, think again. As soon as the four-page document was published, they complained that intelligence agencies had to be part of an ongoing global coverage. -up and that his lack of being absolutely fair broke the law.
“It becomes very difficult for the government to rarely seek to hide what it knows about #OriginOfCovid when it sees a report like this that doesn’t involve any of the requested information,” tweeted Alina Chan, a prominent conspirator in the lab leaks.
Chan is co-author of a breathless e-book alleging that the virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and escaped, inadvertently or intentionally, to infect the world. I reviewed this eBook on those pages and explained why its “evidence” is missing.
Chan’s co-author, British scientist Matt Ridley, also expressed dismay at the intelligence report, tweeting that “intelligence agencies turn out to be incompetent. . . or flagrantly violate the law. “
Another reaction just to lie about what the intelligence report says. This is the technique of Mike Pompeo, who was Donald Trump’s secretary of state when the COVID pandemic began, and under whose scrutiny an executive of anti-China State Department officials invented and promoted lab leaking. hyphen.
Read more: Chronicle: These ‘experts’ sold to the USin a nefarious COVID plan and never paid a price
Pompeo’s view, also on Twitter, that the report “confirms what we knew all along: The only logical explanation is that the virus originated in the Wuhan lab. “In fact, he says no such thing.
The report’s release also derails accusations by Republicans in Congress that U. S. scientists colluded with the Chinese government to suppress evidence of China’s complicity in the pandemic.
On Friday, the same day the intelligence report was released, the GOP-dominated House subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic requested documents from Kristian Andersen, a leading virologist at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, as part of its stupid investigation into whether Andersen and Anthony Fauci, Among other true scientists, he has come to the false conclusion that the virus came to humans through herbs, rather than the efforts of the Chinese government.
The intelligence report also serves as a rebuke to news agencies that have adhered to the lab leak theory, despite the total lack of evidence to the contrary. These organizations come with the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Atlantic and ProPública.
They cited speculation of a lab leak with other degrees of credulity. The Wall Street Journal has been the ultimate purveyor of this cooked, indeed raw, bony medium, in a way that belies the oft-cited defense that its news pages are distinct from its right-wing op-ed pages; The laboratory leak theory has been promoted through its journalists and opinion writers.
The saddest example is ProPublica, which has tarnished its reputation for thorough and thorough investigative journalism, such as its recent and much-needed reporting on corrupt conflicts of interest through Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. , participating in an article last October with Vanity Fair, which has no such reputation.
I pointed out the flaws in this article after it came out, as did others. The intelligence report points in particular to two main statements in the ProPublica article. More on that in a moment.
Read more: Chronicle: Contrary to the most recent claims, there is still a shred of evidence that COVID escaped from a Chinese lab
First, let’s take a look at what the intelligence report says and its context. Contrary to Pompeo’s claim, the report categorically states that it “stands up to the merits of the two likely pandemic maximum scenarios. “
The speculation of “zoonoses” accepted by most virologists and epidemiologists is that the virus reached human wildlife, at the maximum in fact, at a wildlife market in the large city of Wuhan, where animals were sold with the maximum probability of being intermediate carriers of the Sars2 virus. and epidemiological evidence linking the outbreak to this market as of December 2019.
Speculation at the time is that the outbreak can be attributed to the Wuhan Institute. This is based on the natural guess that the lab was running on the virus itself or on a close ancestor that escaped into the wild.
The intelligence report states that either hypothesis “remains plausible. “But with the slightest capacity for critical thinking you will see in the text that it opposes the hypothesis of the leak from the laboratory.
The agencies say that even if WIV participated in genetically modified viruses for research, there is no evidence that any of these paintings “involve SARS-CV-2, a close ancestor, or a spinal virus similar enough to have been the source of the pandemic. “
The report in particular addresses two allegedly key pieces of evidence promoted through the lab leak camp. The first is that several WIV researchers became ill in the fall of 2019 with COVID; In other words, that the virus proliferated in the laboratory much earlier. He came to the outdoor community.
This has always been quite rare. Its most frequent promoter, the Wall Street Journal, claimed that the disease was “either COVID-19 or a seasonal disease. “(November, when they’re supposed to be sick, is flu season, after all. )to unnamed sources.
The intelligence report states that the investigators’ symptoms were “consistent but not diagnostic with COVID-19” and “could have been caused by a number of illnesses. “Some symptoms, he says, “were not consistent with COVID-19. ” In fact, it is said that “while several WIV researchers became ill in the fall of 2019, they presented. . . symptoms consistent with blood loss or allergies. “
Read more: Column: ProPublica and Vanity Fair push COVID lab leak theory, its exposure is an exercise accident
The report says there is no evidence that WIV had samples of SARS-CoV-2 or any close relatives, prior to the pandemic outbreak, when it began operating with SARS-CoV-2. Two viruses that the institute knows works, and that conspiracy theorists say may have been manipulated in SARS-CoV-2, are not “close enough to SARS-CoV-2 to be a direct ancestor. “
Then there’s the claim that WIV experienced a delayed biosecurity incident in 2019 that triggered a reaction to the crisis. The conspirators say it must have been a lab leak. The intelligence report says: no. WIV conducted a biosecurity education course for workers’ virus bodies in November 2019, but the education “seems routine, rather than a reaction to an express incident. “
This brings us back to the irresponsible conspiracy of the press. Newspapers and cable news systems have long treated theories of lab leaks and zoonoses as equivalent, claiming that either suffered from a lack of evidence.
This is very misleading. There is no evidence of a lab leak; in fact, experienced virologists find claims that WIV can produce the SARS-Cov-2 virus in the laboratory to the point of being fanciful. However, epidemiological and virological evidence of zoonotic transmission is constantly accumulating.
The organization that deserves the utmost embarrassment over the intelligence report is ProPublica. His article relied heavily on Toy Reid, a former China analyst for the U. S. government. The U. S. government claimed to have a greater command of Chinese government slang than local Mandarin speakers, a claim that has drawn attention among ProPublica and its Vanity Fair spouse.
The analyst said his amazing skills allowed him to interpret a government document as a reaction to a twist of fate at the WIV in November 2019. This is the episode that, according to the intelligence report, now has nothing to do with an immediate crisis. After the publication of the article, several true Mandarin experts claimed that Reid had misinterpreted the document.
ProPublica also credulously cited the thread about poor health researchers at WIV.
ProPublica responded to the complaint about his paintings a month later with a memo from the publisher that largely defended Reid’s interpretation and supported his story. He withdrew the article. The intelligence report has now demolished a component of the article’s central claim about a “biocontainment incident,” i. e. , a laboratory accident.
Stephen Engelberg, editor-in-chief of ProPublica, told me via email Sunday: “We have questions about [the intelligence report] and will report next week to be informed about its findings and methodology. We will update ProPublica readers if there is anything new to say. “
As of this writing, ProPublica has released an update.
The lab leak conspiracy gang has defamed scientists and tricked the public into believing a theory that has no factual basis. They are ashamed.
This story made the impression in the Los Angeles Times.
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