Lab leak – True origins of Covid-19

https://www.whitehouse.gov/lab-leak-true-origins-of-covid-19/

by binarno_sp • 1 year ago

16 33 1 year ago

The dumbness level of the Trump administration reached new heights.

Public health officials often mislead the American people through conflicting messaging, knee-jerk reactions, and a lack of transparency. Most egregiously, the federal government demonized alternative treatments and disfavored narratives, such as the lab leak theory, in a shameful effort to coerce and control the American people’s health decisions. When those efforts failed, the Biden Administration resorted to “outright censorship—coercing and colluding with the world’s largest social media companies to censor all COVID-19-related dissent.”

I remember when lab leak was officially considered a conspiracy theory, and everyone who mentioned or even referenced it should be canceled and shunned.

eviks3• 1 year ago

But since the was no such a time (it was an official alternative), and only a few people got shunned, the theory became more prominent

throwaway2909• 1 year ago

For a time mentioning covid lab leak (like literally quoting published research) on Instagram or FB looked definitely suppressed to me. As non American this is maybe the only thing that looks wrong about US gov COVID handling.

therealpygon4• 1 year ago

And since then, there is no more scientific evidence or verifiable sources. Hence the reason the CIA didn’t even believe it and gave it the lowest confidence rating it has. Used to be truth matters, now rumors and theories are more important.

tim3338• 1 year ago

For me Ralph Baric's 2024 test testimony moved the lab leak hypothesis to pretty likely. I think that's probably "since then" depending on when then is exactly.

Also the 2023 "so friggin likely" messages. There has been various stuff dragged out into public by the court actions, leaks and subpoenas that are the hallmark of open science.

techpineapple• 1 year ago

It seems like we’ve become a populous where we base our entire rhetorical confidence on logical fallacies(if “they” don’t want us to believe it, it must be true!”)

shakna• 1 year ago

If half of the claims are accurate... Should Trump not be blaming himself, here?

ath3nd3• 1 year ago

No, as you can see by the beautiful and very appropriate visuals (https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Frame-...), he is coming out towards us, the viewers, with his back to the Lab Leak letters. He is poised, he's not looking back (suggesting that maybe the letters will explode?).

If we know anything about American fiction, it's that:

- The person walking with their back on the scene is the hero

- The hero is totally justified in whatever they are doing, no need to question their motives, morale or veracity

- An explosion or sunglasses (or both) is imminent

If this wasn't tragic, it'd be actually some (low) quality entertainment.

ath3nd3• 1 year ago

This doesn't look like a press release from a government, but more like an ad site for questionable supplements.

zero-sharp• 1 year ago

I understand how politicized the pandemic became, but I'm still baffled that this is making its way to the white house website now.

throwaway2909• 1 year ago

Not from US. I understand why democrats and centrists worried about COVID origin and lab leak theory and that it was suppressed. But the extreme right of all people, how do they explain it if their previous line was literally "COVID doesn't exist or is not worse than any flu"?

amalcon• 1 year ago

It's pretty simple actually: the lab leak theory is what allows Trump to maximally blame other people. The ability to always blame other people is the most important thing to Trump, even above his usual motivations of always being perceived as correct and never blaming himself. Blaming other people is priority number one.

tim3338• 1 year ago

I don't think "covid doesn't exist" was ever a widespread position, and you could argue it's not as bad as some flus.

throwaway2909• 1 year ago

don't think "covid doesn't exist" was ever a widespread position

Semantics... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/03/donald-trump...

you could argue it's not as bad as some flus.

A flu kills at most 50 000 people per year in US. Remind me which flu killed 1+ million in 2 years and cost US 16 trillion bucks?

ath3nd3• 1 year ago

could argue it's not as bad as some flus.

You could argue that, but you'd be dead wrong. Herman Cain kind of wrong.

Yes, you could argue that, if by "some flus" you mean the Spanish Flu of 1918. But if you are not a demagogue and not trying to twist words and try to compare Covid in 2020 to the flu in 2020, you'd be totally and BRUTALLY wrong.

Let's look at the numbers and do some rudimentary math:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124915/flu-deaths-numbe...

6,300 people died of the flu in the US in 2020-2021

Now, let's visit how many people died of Covid in 2020 in the US.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1382334/number-covid-dea...

380,000 people died of Covid in 2020-2021

Now let's divide 380,000/6,300. We get the number 60. That's 60 times more deaths. One could then argue, but with data, that Covid was actually 60 TIMES worse than the flu in 2020.

Now you might say that 6300 deaths in the US during that time were unusually low for flu and go for the average annual number of flu deaths in the US which is about 25,000. Then we do the math and we divide 380,000/25,000, and we get 15.2. That tells you that in 2020 Covid was "only" 15.2 times worse than the flu. You've heard about the 10x programmer, it's apparently significant enough to mention something is 10x more than something else, so what about 15.2x times?

But yeah, generally you are right, it was not as bad as some flus. It didn't kill as many people as the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918, which is, I am sure, what many people thought of when their favorite demagogue fed them the narrative that it's "not as bad as the some flus".

I don't think "covid doesn't exist" was ever a widespread position

Enough right-wingers pushed this BS that there are numerous articles fact-checking their unfounded claims.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/deep-dive-into-stupi...

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/fact-check-the-virus-t...

Enough right-wing figures also pushed the narrative that the vaccine didn't work (they were up to 17x times wrong, especially in the beginning of the pandemic):

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-compare-co...

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/red-blue-america-glaring-divid...

So you could argue a lot of things, but the numbers'd always prove you wrong.

tim3338• 1 year ago

It's a shame covid's origins got so politicized by both sides. We should be able to deal with viruses in a scientific manner and consider the relevant hypotheses without being demonized.

throwaway2909• 1 year ago

When far right puts politics above true science it's not surprising. They always do that anyway.

But when left put politics above true science then science gets discredited for everybody. And thanks to FOIA everybody knows that this happened with COVID in 2020/21 and far right has this fact to support their "science bad" and various conspiracy talking points for many years.

throwaway2909• 1 year ago

you know you're onto something when you piss off both sides at once. they downvote but have nothing to object haha

Lab leak – True origins of Covid-19

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