I genuinely appreciate people who look past the headlines and partisan squabbles to consider the implications of events. Consider this on the “lab leak” hypothesis for the origin of SARS-CoV-2 by Ian Birrell at UnHerd:
But what would it mean if the lab leak hypotheses proved correct? The result would be uncomfortable not just for the Chinese Communist Party, which would be guilty of overseeing arguably the biggest cover-up in history of an event that caused economic chaos, millions of deaths and misery around the world. It would shake science to its foundations for carrying out risky research despite clear warnings of the dangers, and then collaborating in an epic whitewash. And it would challenge a media that meekly accepted the establishment view rather than doing its job of asking difficult questions — a failure even more serious than the Iraq War intelligence debacle. Indeed, much of science and the media already look sadly tainted by their failures on this front, regardless of the outcome.
We still have no hard proof how this wretched pandemic emerged in that central Chinese city. We do know, however, that determined efforts in both China and the wider world to prove that Covid-19 had a natural zoonotic origin have failed so far to find an intermediate host animal that might have turned a bat virus into such a lethal, well-adapted pathogen for human beings, despite testing 80,000 samples. We know that Chinese officials were guilty of an initial cover-up that inflamed the impact of the disease with devastating global consequences, and that Beijing promoted false theories, smeared critics and expelled foreign reporters. We also know that the World Health Organisation’s collusion with the Communist regime has undermined its credibility.
Read the whole thing. I think that this assessment is about right:
No doubt there would be sanctions, sabre-rattling, some talk of consumer boycotts and loud demands for reparations — before the arguments drag on fruitlessly for many years. “China will do whatever it can to deny it,†said Lianchao Han, a leading dissident and former Chinese government official. “Xi will mobilise his massive propaganda machine to fabricate stories and facts to shake off his responsibility and liabilities. We already passed the point to depose him for mishandling the pandemic if it’s proved to a lab leak.â€
But that just characterizes the repercussions for Xi. There would also be repercussions for China, science, and the media.
I’m still waiting for the inevitable civil law suits.
The real fun would happen if the Chinese Foreign Minister’s scenario were true: Covid-19 was manufactured by the US Army biowarfare laboratory (USAMRIID) at Ft Detrick, MD, and it was planted by US Army athletes at the 2019 International Military Games held in Wuhan.
The alleged objective was to derail the Chinese economy.
That, of course, would be an overt act of war.
Are America’s Rulers so stupid as to think that a virus planted in China would not spread? I think the answer to that question is, Yes.
These are the same people who adopt aggressive policies towards both Russia and China, and then wonder why they are allies. They put a US armored unit a few hundred miles from Moscow and are puzzled by Russia’s counter threats. They berate China about its behavior at a diplomatic meeting in Alaska, and are stunned when China talks back.
Do I think USAMRIID made and planted the virus. No, I think it is yet another natural product of the East Asian paddy system, just like every other influenza and coronavirus we have experienced.
I agree that our political leadership is stupid. I don’t believe that SARS-CoV-2 is a weapon of war whether developed by China or the U. S.
“then collaborating in an epic whitewash.”
There was not a whitewash. There was an effort to deny that there was evidence that it was manufactured as a weapon in response to a big effort to claim that it was. That may have carried over at times into claims it was not made in a lab at all.
Steve
“Xi will mobilise his massive propaganda machine to fabricate stories and facts to shake off his responsibility and liabilities.”
That suggests a certain omnipotence I doubt the regime could live up to.
If the CDC wanted to fund gain of function research, why did they want to do it there? Because of the risk?
Just for the record at this point I think that Occam’s Razor suggests that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a lab. As new facts are revealed that might change. As Keynes said when my information changes I may change my mind.
If Covid-19 is an accidental release, it reemphasize the dangers posed by the existence of viable smallpox viruses in Russian, American (and others?) hands.
The plague in the movie 12 Monkeys was release intentionally by an apocalyptically motivated insider from a viral research facility. https://blog.sesquibits.com/2020/05/18/film-review-12-monkeys-1995/ is my review (if links are ok?)