For me the lab leak theory of wild-type covid is accepted on the "balance of probabilities" standard of evidence. We do not have, however, strong enough evidence to convict, on the basis of "beyond reasonable doubt".
If it was a lab leak, then of a virus collected from the wild, and possibly subjected to humanization, forced evolution to be more infective to humans, as part of a dumb research program. This does not need to be dark forces with military funding doing secret experiments in hollowed-out Ukrainian volcanoes, you can do this crap as a postdoc, or even lower down the academic foodchain, and it costs next to nothing. Wuhan would be the obvious source, even if they discovered it many months after the fact (likely) and by that time there were political machinations deciding what best to do with this. Perhaps the Wuhan wet market was the best cover-up they could come up with at the time, even though with it all around the world by then, not "discovering" it in Wuhan at all might have been a better option.
I know, from the day job, that Wuhan hospitals were in full-on panic mode months before the official declaration, and were _documenting_ their refusal to see trial patients by October 2019 because of the pandemic.
Far more intriguing to me is the possibility, to likelihood, that Omicron was engineered. A genetic throwback with almost all nonysnonymous mutations. And likely also a "leak", in the accidental, rather than deliberate sense. Microbe labs have slapdash safety procedures, checkbox "there is a shower in the corner of every room" stuff, and the scientists get very blase and arrogant about it, as only academics can. I know, I've been one (not deadly virus research but similar setups).
Alina Chan and Matt Ridley’s Viral is not the only book from a major trade publisher to consider the problem of virus origins in an objective light. My "Politically Incorrect Guide to Pandemics"--I am both a China expert and hold an advanced degree in biology--concludes that it was clearly a bioweapon in development. I will be glad to send you a copy, Eugyppius.
I expected this review months ago, and here I am on vacation with my copy of Viral littered with hundreds of sticky notes all the back at home... oh well.
Have to go from memory some of the talking points I had in mind:
1) First off, anyone who wants the TL;DR, I think Matt Ridley's interview with Michael Shermer months back gives a good overview on the book (and closes with Matt giving his best "steel-manning" of both sides, which Eugyppius noted was strange in chapters 12/13) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8LXhhnwuPo
2) I started flagging each instance in the book Daszak was caught in a lie and it got comical eventually how lazy he got at even trying to lie. Kept picturing Mr Burns having the nuclear inspectors shows up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdthUGWFMtM Seriously, anyone doing a first time read, try to keep up with the number of blatant lies he tells... 50? 100?
3) I agree it felt like Alina and Matt were pandering to the possibility it wasn't a lab leak. I suspect partly because when they started writing they may have honestly not expected the evidence to be so damning, partly to appease publishers, and partly because sometimes you have pretend to see the other side (like when Jehovah's witnesses come to my door, occasionally I will be kind any act like I am carefully considering their bullshit). But yes, it reminded me of mid 90's when coverage of the OJ Simpson case tried to pretend there was any other possibility besides The Juice murdering Nicole and Ronald Goldman.
4) Eugyppius: "The irony is that the regime narrative is caught between a rock and a hard place here. To make the strongest case for natural origins outside Wuhan requires acknowledging widespread early infection and admitting that lockdowns were worthless. Alternatively, the more the press and the Corona astrologers cleave to the orthodox mythology that Corona did not take off in the West until February 2020, the more they seal the case for a WIV laboratory release."
I don't know how I stumbled on some people on twitter at the beginning of DRASTIC, but somehow I did. It was a thrilling ride- all the pieces added up and they even managed to get film footage of the inside of the Lab before most of it got scrubbed (totally scary stuff with poorly sealed freezers jammed full of presumably dangerous stuff). There is some great footage out there of Dascak putting his foot in mouth several times- this whole US group was very very keen on gain of function and they were clearly not going to take no for an answer. It's infuriating to think that US taxpayer money actually funded this virus that ended up paralyzing the world and millions of people (never mind the deaths and critically ill people who were dreadfully treated in the hospitals). It should be so simple to see who in Congress gave permission to the NIH funding and heads should roll. But nothing happens, because they all cover for each other. Gain of function is a form of bio-weapon. It should not be studied by narcissistic morons like Fauci who couldn't even handle the HIV outbreak. These stupid people are dangerous. And the stupidity continues with no one lining up those with accountability and making them suffer some meaningful consequences.
Just because we couldn't have known (or didn't know), doesn't mean nobody could have known. The primary political result in the US was destruction of the president and installation of a monolithic socialist cabal. The timing of the release indicates someone knew, or calculated, the release at that time would shift American politics. I'm confident on the available evidence that it was on purpose and was driven by a multitude of corrupt parties that incited panic in the US which spread globally.
So it is well known to most people that it was released from a lab. Doesn't matter, except as evidence to identify and punish perpetrators. We're not there yet.
Two things we need to figure out:
One is finding out who did it and making sure they can't do it again. If no one is punished, they will continue. Biological pathogens are just a new tool for terrorism and oppression.
The other is making sure everyone understands that some people were significantly sickened by sars2, while most weren't. We need to help everyone understand how to maintain their immune health, and withhold sympathy for those who choose not to. Obesity and metabolic defects that are common to the worst outcomes are all caused by hedonistic lifestyles, and are easily prevented or corrected. The failures of medical integrity -- both in treatment and prevention -- got us into this mess. We should expect better of our doctors.
I would not write off intentional release so quickly. First off, if one were to intentionally release a virus for a specific purpose it would be prudent to have multiple layers of deniability. Natural occurrence would be the first line of defense. If that became untenable, an accidental leak would be the next line of defense. This would certainly be plausible in such a "face conscious" society as China. Being seen as having blundered is never preferable.
Second, if one does accidentally release a virus, is it customary to ship your citizens around the globe, as the Chinese Communist Party did?
Third, if one were to intentionally release a virus for a specific purpose, it would have to be designed to fit that purpose. If one wanted to cause a pandemic the virus could not be that virulent, or else the spread would peter out too quickly. It would however have to be deadly enough to cause the right level of panic. Or at least be capable of being spun into a sufficient level of panic. COVID-19 seems tailor made for this purpose.
What specific purpose could one have in mind to release such a virus. Well, it is not coincidental in my mind that the declaration of a pandemic occurred in March of 2020. It is also not coincidental that there was at the same time a campaign of lawfare going on in several critical swing States to make changes to voting laws that seemed purpose made for taking advantage of restrictions put in place in response to a pandemic.
It is also no secret that the American government is deeply penetrated by the Chinese Communist Party. Both the Chinese Communist Party and the Permanent American Deep State viewed Trump and his acolytes as an existential threat. It was also clear from at least late 2018 that the Democrat party had nothing to run against Trump.
Is it really that big a leap into conspiracy theory to posit that the American Deep State colluded with the Chinese Communist Party to create the conditions for widespread unregulated mail-in voting, which everyone agrees supplied Biden with his winning margin in every crucial swing State? I do not think it is. How this played out is simply too cute by half to be anything other than intentional and executed for the purpose of affecting the 2020 Presidential election. For instance, note that the "vaccines" showed up just in time, after the election, to turn off the pandemic just as Biden would be taking office. The fact that they failed to do so is beside the point, they were intended to.
This simply played out too perfectly for Xi Jinping, the American ruling class and the Globalist cabal for this to have been anything other than intentional.
Couple of days ago A Midwestern Doctor posted "Where did COVID-19 Come From and What Can be Done to End this Pandemic?". Not a review of the book, but a discussion about the origin subject. For those who might want to read more. https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/where-did-covid-19-come-from-and
It is great that you are thinking about this. There are several "angles" to the story:
- Circumstantial evidence of China virology research (which is what you highlighted in an amazing and very accessible way)
- Genetic evidence of intentional design of Sars-Cov-2, such as the FCS (that you also mentioned), but also HIV gp120 inserts, which are critical to the pathology of SC2, reinfections, vaccine failure etc
- Evidence of preparations leading up to the pandemic, such as Event 201, parallel work on vaccines for "novel coronavirus" in July 2019 (I wrote about it, among others, highlighting what was in the NIH fridge on the B-roll promotional video)
Firstly, it seems that all roads point to Wuhan for Sars -2 origin? And it was most likely a lab leak? Probably unintentional?
It seems the virus itself has a simple story to tell, but the humans surrounding this virus makes everything obscure and confusing. Perhaps due to all the ass covering, it will be difficult to get to the "bottom" of it, lol!
Anyways, mystery illnesses always do fade with some hearty rest, so please don't overtax yourself, E. Feel better soon!
apologies for typos and other infelicities - still cleaning them up, but wanted to finally get this out.
For me the lab leak theory of wild-type covid is accepted on the "balance of probabilities" standard of evidence. We do not have, however, strong enough evidence to convict, on the basis of "beyond reasonable doubt".
If it was a lab leak, then of a virus collected from the wild, and possibly subjected to humanization, forced evolution to be more infective to humans, as part of a dumb research program. This does not need to be dark forces with military funding doing secret experiments in hollowed-out Ukrainian volcanoes, you can do this crap as a postdoc, or even lower down the academic foodchain, and it costs next to nothing. Wuhan would be the obvious source, even if they discovered it many months after the fact (likely) and by that time there were political machinations deciding what best to do with this. Perhaps the Wuhan wet market was the best cover-up they could come up with at the time, even though with it all around the world by then, not "discovering" it in Wuhan at all might have been a better option.
I know, from the day job, that Wuhan hospitals were in full-on panic mode months before the official declaration, and were _documenting_ their refusal to see trial patients by October 2019 because of the pandemic.
Far more intriguing to me is the possibility, to likelihood, that Omicron was engineered. A genetic throwback with almost all nonysnonymous mutations. And likely also a "leak", in the accidental, rather than deliberate sense. Microbe labs have slapdash safety procedures, checkbox "there is a shower in the corner of every room" stuff, and the scientists get very blase and arrogant about it, as only academics can. I know, I've been one (not deadly virus research but similar setups).
Alina Chan and Matt Ridley’s Viral is not the only book from a major trade publisher to consider the problem of virus origins in an objective light. My "Politically Incorrect Guide to Pandemics"--I am both a China expert and hold an advanced degree in biology--concludes that it was clearly a bioweapon in development. I will be glad to send you a copy, Eugyppius.
I expected this review months ago, and here I am on vacation with my copy of Viral littered with hundreds of sticky notes all the back at home... oh well.
Have to go from memory some of the talking points I had in mind:
1) First off, anyone who wants the TL;DR, I think Matt Ridley's interview with Michael Shermer months back gives a good overview on the book (and closes with Matt giving his best "steel-manning" of both sides, which Eugyppius noted was strange in chapters 12/13) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8LXhhnwuPo
2) I started flagging each instance in the book Daszak was caught in a lie and it got comical eventually how lazy he got at even trying to lie. Kept picturing Mr Burns having the nuclear inspectors shows up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdthUGWFMtM Seriously, anyone doing a first time read, try to keep up with the number of blatant lies he tells... 50? 100?
3) I agree it felt like Alina and Matt were pandering to the possibility it wasn't a lab leak. I suspect partly because when they started writing they may have honestly not expected the evidence to be so damning, partly to appease publishers, and partly because sometimes you have pretend to see the other side (like when Jehovah's witnesses come to my door, occasionally I will be kind any act like I am carefully considering their bullshit). But yes, it reminded me of mid 90's when coverage of the OJ Simpson case tried to pretend there was any other possibility besides The Juice murdering Nicole and Ronald Goldman.
4) Eugyppius: "The irony is that the regime narrative is caught between a rock and a hard place here. To make the strongest case for natural origins outside Wuhan requires acknowledging widespread early infection and admitting that lockdowns were worthless. Alternatively, the more the press and the Corona astrologers cleave to the orthodox mythology that Corona did not take off in the West until February 2020, the more they seal the case for a WIV laboratory release."
Precisely.
I don't know how I stumbled on some people on twitter at the beginning of DRASTIC, but somehow I did. It was a thrilling ride- all the pieces added up and they even managed to get film footage of the inside of the Lab before most of it got scrubbed (totally scary stuff with poorly sealed freezers jammed full of presumably dangerous stuff). There is some great footage out there of Dascak putting his foot in mouth several times- this whole US group was very very keen on gain of function and they were clearly not going to take no for an answer. It's infuriating to think that US taxpayer money actually funded this virus that ended up paralyzing the world and millions of people (never mind the deaths and critically ill people who were dreadfully treated in the hospitals). It should be so simple to see who in Congress gave permission to the NIH funding and heads should roll. But nothing happens, because they all cover for each other. Gain of function is a form of bio-weapon. It should not be studied by narcissistic morons like Fauci who couldn't even handle the HIV outbreak. These stupid people are dangerous. And the stupidity continues with no one lining up those with accountability and making them suffer some meaningful consequences.
Just because we couldn't have known (or didn't know), doesn't mean nobody could have known. The primary political result in the US was destruction of the president and installation of a monolithic socialist cabal. The timing of the release indicates someone knew, or calculated, the release at that time would shift American politics. I'm confident on the available evidence that it was on purpose and was driven by a multitude of corrupt parties that incited panic in the US which spread globally.
So it is well known to most people that it was released from a lab. Doesn't matter, except as evidence to identify and punish perpetrators. We're not there yet.
Two things we need to figure out:
One is finding out who did it and making sure they can't do it again. If no one is punished, they will continue. Biological pathogens are just a new tool for terrorism and oppression.
The other is making sure everyone understands that some people were significantly sickened by sars2, while most weren't. We need to help everyone understand how to maintain their immune health, and withhold sympathy for those who choose not to. Obesity and metabolic defects that are common to the worst outcomes are all caused by hedonistic lifestyles, and are easily prevented or corrected. The failures of medical integrity -- both in treatment and prevention -- got us into this mess. We should expect better of our doctors.
I would not write off intentional release so quickly. First off, if one were to intentionally release a virus for a specific purpose it would be prudent to have multiple layers of deniability. Natural occurrence would be the first line of defense. If that became untenable, an accidental leak would be the next line of defense. This would certainly be plausible in such a "face conscious" society as China. Being seen as having blundered is never preferable.
Second, if one does accidentally release a virus, is it customary to ship your citizens around the globe, as the Chinese Communist Party did?
Third, if one were to intentionally release a virus for a specific purpose, it would have to be designed to fit that purpose. If one wanted to cause a pandemic the virus could not be that virulent, or else the spread would peter out too quickly. It would however have to be deadly enough to cause the right level of panic. Or at least be capable of being spun into a sufficient level of panic. COVID-19 seems tailor made for this purpose.
What specific purpose could one have in mind to release such a virus. Well, it is not coincidental in my mind that the declaration of a pandemic occurred in March of 2020. It is also not coincidental that there was at the same time a campaign of lawfare going on in several critical swing States to make changes to voting laws that seemed purpose made for taking advantage of restrictions put in place in response to a pandemic.
It is also no secret that the American government is deeply penetrated by the Chinese Communist Party. Both the Chinese Communist Party and the Permanent American Deep State viewed Trump and his acolytes as an existential threat. It was also clear from at least late 2018 that the Democrat party had nothing to run against Trump.
Is it really that big a leap into conspiracy theory to posit that the American Deep State colluded with the Chinese Communist Party to create the conditions for widespread unregulated mail-in voting, which everyone agrees supplied Biden with his winning margin in every crucial swing State? I do not think it is. How this played out is simply too cute by half to be anything other than intentional and executed for the purpose of affecting the 2020 Presidential election. For instance, note that the "vaccines" showed up just in time, after the election, to turn off the pandemic just as Biden would be taking office. The fact that they failed to do so is beside the point, they were intended to.
This simply played out too perfectly for Xi Jinping, the American ruling class and the Globalist cabal for this to have been anything other than intentional.
Couple of days ago A Midwestern Doctor posted "Where did COVID-19 Come From and What Can be Done to End this Pandemic?". Not a review of the book, but a discussion about the origin subject. For those who might want to read more. https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/where-did-covid-19-come-from-and
Eugyppius, would your bottom-line recommendation be to buy this book, or not to buy it?
It is great that you are thinking about this. There are several "angles" to the story:
- Circumstantial evidence of China virology research (which is what you highlighted in an amazing and very accessible way)
- Genetic evidence of intentional design of Sars-Cov-2, such as the FCS (that you also mentioned), but also HIV gp120 inserts, which are critical to the pathology of SC2, reinfections, vaccine failure etc
- Evidence of preparations leading up to the pandemic, such as Event 201, parallel work on vaccines for "novel coronavirus" in July 2019 (I wrote about it, among others, highlighting what was in the NIH fridge on the B-roll promotional video)
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/2019-novel-coronavirus-vaccine-dated
The RatG13 virus was entered into databases AFTER release of SC2 and is widely considered to be a fake genome to distract our attention.
The Sars-Cov-2 pandemic is a fascinating story. If we do not understand what this virus IS, we will never come out of this sad situation.
Covid will get much, much worse, in my opinion. It is bad enough already.
I hope your stomach virus gets better, it might be covid, my covid (Nov 2020) started as a stomach flu. If you are dehydrated consider getting help!
The furin cleavage insert is the smoking gun for gain-of-function gene engineering.
have you read this ?
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/peter-daszak-well-yes-this-is-exactly?utm_source=%2Fprofile%2F32715357-el-gato-malo&utm_medium=reader2
What do you think about Ethical Skeptic's hypothesis of covid in the human pop starting in 2018?
And from left...left...left of field we find...
Based on the work/ideas ofFred Hoyle (1915-2001) and Chandra Wickramasinghe.
Origin of new emergent Coronavirus and Candida fungal diseases—Terrestrial or cosmic?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7358766/
Lots of food for thought in this article!
Firstly, it seems that all roads point to Wuhan for Sars -2 origin? And it was most likely a lab leak? Probably unintentional?
It seems the virus itself has a simple story to tell, but the humans surrounding this virus makes everything obscure and confusing. Perhaps due to all the ass covering, it will be difficult to get to the "bottom" of it, lol!
Anyways, mystery illnesses always do fade with some hearty rest, so please don't overtax yourself, E. Feel better soon!
Lots of food for thought. Many thanks!