U.S. spy agencies say origins of Covid-19 may never be known

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-intelligence-releases-report-covid-19-origins-2021-10-29/

by spzx • 5 years ago

31 56 5 years ago

spzx• 5 years ago

Updated Assessment on COVID-19 Origins: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declass...

simonh6• 5 years ago

Short version - until we find a candidate progenitor virus in an animal population, which enables us to work out a likely route of transmission to humans, we don't have enough information to know.

garmaine• 5 years ago

Which we won’t it it was bred in a lab. Hence, we won’t know.

kjaftaedi4• 5 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

roenxi• 5 years ago

Although I think, from skimming the report, there is probably enough information to say that this (1) wasn't intentional and (2) is possibly a lab leak.

That is enough to say that it will probably happen again in our lifetime from an actual lab leak. We have the technology, the world is large, there are a lot of foolish researchers in it. We need to be more prepared to curtail or cease international travel.

scotty792• 5 years ago

Since the next best species that the virus can spread among (apart form humans) is civets then we should probably start huge research on viruses carried by them and we'll probably find the progenitor and most likely learn a lot of interesting things along the way.

sschueller• 5 years ago

It doesn't really matter. Either way we need an international oversight for such labs like we have for nuclear weapons.

Second we need to focus on how we will prevent the next pandemic irregardless if it comes from a lab or animal to human transmission. Most important is to contain it and provide the tools for the global community to respond such as gen sequencing and money for the affected area. If a state would receive funds and there was a very clear strategy they would be less likely to hide such an outbreak.

The biggest issue I see it how do we get something like this setup without there being issues like we see with the WHO. The US managed to turn any trust this organization had into the trash (although the US had the biggest influence in it) letting the countries that always had doubts about it get their confirmation.

yostrovs• 5 years ago

There is no international oversight of nuclear weapons.

zinekeller• 5 years ago

Very good note. There should be (in the sense that treaties were signed), just not that those treaties are ratified by important countries (and therefore enforced). IAEA is weaker than WHO (relatively speaking), as I know the only reduction treaties (it's a series) that are successful is between US and Russia (nuclear arms successor of the Soviet Union), which is only two of nine who openly have nuclear weapons, not to mention the (around) five alleged-but-never-admitted nuclear states, and many more that may have dormant technical capability that can be used when it really gone bad.

(edited because I forgot about New START)

disambiguation4• 5 years ago

It doesn't really matter.

Uhh, it matters a lot.

an important part of effective oversight programs is accountability .. which requires knowing if the virus was fucking man-made.

Also the WHO lost any credibility it still had when it started bending over for China.

oliwarner4• 5 years ago

It doesn't matter.

The international rules you want to set against (eg) gain-of-function research, or rules on moving research abroad to bypass local ethics requirements can be created without knowing what caused SARS-CoV-2.

I don't see any benefit to society trying to punish people for it. It's a colossal waste of focus. Just stop it happening next time.

himinlomax6• 5 years ago

The Chinese government could dispell any doubt as to whether it came from the Wuhan lab by allowing unlimited access to an independent forensic team. Any other country would allow this, or at the very least pretend to do it. It's only fair therefore to assume they have something to hide there. The only exculpatory hypothesis is that their political system is so authoritarian that they can't even allow the appearance of an independent commission, even if they have nothing to hide wrt this virus. And it's damning in itself.

bell-cot2• 5 years ago

Your "Any other country would allow..." faith in the honesty, transparency, etc. of non-Chinese governments is touching. But not realistic. Certainly not for large, powerful countries - with both the pride and means to withstand some international arm-twisting.

And if the Chinese government did allow such an investigation, and it found China innocent? How many of those currently inclined to hate or blame China would believe it? Not getting into such a "heads we lose, tails they win" mess seems perfectly rational.

himinlomax6• 5 years ago

I also said "or at least would pretend to."

But in any case, yes, there are plenty of institutions in the West that would make such a cover up near impossible. The exception might be if the events happened within a military institution -- and even then, in the US or Europe, there would be calls for inquiries.

Of course if you're part of the "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" or "the CIA killed JFK" crowds, that won't convince you of anything. Reasonable people will however recognize that covering up such events under such scrutiny is a risky move, and as such unlikely to stand for long. The calls for more investigation would never stop, just consider how riled up antivaxxers are for no good reason; do you really think there would npt be a much larger number of citizens up in arms and furious if there was any hint of such a cover up in their country?

drran2• 5 years ago

It will not clear doubts, because «they destroyed the evidence!!!11».

BTW, there are few other labs, which are candidates for forensic analysis: Vector BSL4 lab in Novosibirsk, RF, which had major incident right before epidemic, and maybe other labs should be checked too, because China and US have different strains of SARS CoV2 with common ancestor outside of both countries.

himinlomax6• 5 years ago

It will not clear doubts with everyone, cf jet fuel melting steel beams and the moon landing. I was implicitly talking about reasonable and rational people.

mrkramer2• 5 years ago

I think it's both: they are so authoritarian and proud they do not allow anyone to enter their national research center and lab and they have a lab leak to hide.

shapefrog2• 5 years ago

Any other country would allow this

The US would? Really?

How about a less controversial 'check', maybe let someone pop into fort knox and check if what they say is there is really there.

himinlomax6• 5 years ago

Look at the heat Fauci has been getting from a part of population. Do you really think it would have been tamer had a US lab been in the same neighborhood as the epicenter of the outbreak? Maybe if it was a top secret military, and just maybe. China is getting away with this even though the lab is not top secret.

masswerk3• 5 years ago

On the other hand, Western researches and intelligence have to corroborate how the hypothesis of an exclusive origin in or near Wuhan around November 2019 works out with the finding of Covid-19 in blood samples from mid-September 2019 in Italy (according to Reuters reporting).

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-tim...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-italy-...

[3] there has been dispute about this, as well: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/dispute-over-italian-co...

himinlomax6• 5 years ago

It's rather simple to explain with a banal hypothesis: that the epidemic began just slightly earlier than initially thought. It just failed to take hold, maybe by pure chance, or because the virus didn't infect a superspreader, or because the initial strains had not yet acquired a tiny mutation that would have made them infectious enough to propagate further.

cm2187• 5 years ago

What is the point? The chinese authorities are untrustworthy and they know it. I am not particularly conspiracist, but if the chinese were to open the Wuhan lab for international inspection, even my reaction would be that it will prove nothing because surely they will have destroyed any incriminating samples and records, and briefed (threatened) the staff. So if they don’t get any benefit from coming out clean, why would they?

mrkramer2• 5 years ago

Everything will be known sooner or later. Since when truth is dangerous?

newsclues• 5 years ago

If it spread via military games in 2019, would the US Intel community be honest about it?

https://financialpost.com/diane-francis/diane-francis-canadi...

shrubble• 5 years ago

"I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole… we had entire training courses." -- former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false" -- CIA director William Colby

Something tells me that a different source of information should be sought...

redwood• 5 years ago

What makes it obviously a lab leak is China's clearly guilty actions and non-cooperation after the fact.

U.S. spy agencies say origins of Covid-19 may never be known

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