Bret has talked in more depth on why he thinks it's a leak.

Nobody said it had to be a bat, coronaviruses can infect a number of mammals

Plagues happen. Look at the history of the world.

I just find it interesting that this plague was just barely over 100 years since the last big one (yes, there have been smaller ones in between).

There were peer reviewed studies as early as last year March that the virus wasn't man made.

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/safety-quality/covid-19-not-man-made-comparative-genomic-study-finds

But that doesn't preclude the idea that it started in a lab, if they were not careful with what they were doing the jump could have been made much much easier.

Of course it's also possible the the virus didn't even originate in Wuhan (though it's the most likely scenario), they are still tracking cases back further. There was an analysis of Chinese social media and references to the symptoms spiked weeks before the first official cases, so it had been around for a while. And if it could have travelled the country (or even the world) freely for weeks at a minimum. I doubt we ever get to a patient zero to know for sure.

Put me also in the "no evidence of engineering" camp.

Infection, what can you say against what Marcus Aurelius said on here? I am not a doctor like y'all which is why I am asking since y'all have differing opinions.

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Covid-19 has a furin cleavage insert which renders it more infective into mammals. These odds of this 4 nucleotide sequence addition occurring by chance are zero. This isn't a naturally occurring virus. It was created by the Wuhan lab IMO. Shi Zenghli.

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Link from Dec 2020

P.U.T.U said:

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Infection, what can you say against what Marcus Aurelius said on here? I am not a doctor like y'all which is why I am asking since y'all have differing opinions.

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Covid-19 has a furin cleavage insert which renders it more infective into mammals. These odds of this 4 nucleotide sequence addition occurring by chance are zero. This isn't a naturally occurring virus. It was created by the Wuhan lab IMO. Shi Zenghli.

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Link from Dec 2020

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I would say the information in the paper he linked is incorrect. For starters, it's false to state that is a truly novel futon cleavage site. The exact same one is found in a strain of coronavirus that infects cats, and that's just one we know about. We haven't sequenced anywhere near the totality of mammalian coronaviruses.

Bump just in case any new evidence has emerged?

I'd just like to point out, despite all the hullabaloo this week, very little in the way of the scientific evidence has changed in the weeks since this thread was started. What has emerged is that there was an active effort to suppress concern that it could have come from a lab and downplay this to the public. A minority of experts saying the virus had hallmarks of an engineered virus has been the case all along, and as I've broken down in various threads most of these claims are either incorrect or embellished (such as the fusion cleavage site being wholly unique and novel).

What has happened this week is people who always wanted to believe it came from a lab (and it may have, I just believe that's much less likely based on the actual scientific data) are now claiming that it must have because certain individuals (most of whom wouldn't have any way of knowing where it actually came from anyway) didn't want that possibility talked about. That's a fallacy and, honestly, it all strikes me as just an attempt to avoid Trump getting any credit or boost in the polls for being "right". They wanted to continue robbing him of any possible credibility. The virus itself continues to have far more features of a natural virus than features potentially indicating lab alteration.

If it DID come from a lab, it most likely is still a natural virus that hasn't been modified and was just being studied and some of those handling contracted it in November 2019.

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The NIH has funded gain of function research on corona viruses specifically carried on in the Wuhan lab.

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We don't know that. It seems likely that the lab was conducting such research, and that Fauci and others suspected it at some point early in the pandemic, but no NIH grant has ever been approved for such a purpose in the Wuhan lab. That is a matter of public record and demonstrably true. If the lab was using NIH funding to conduct this research, they were doing so in violation of their grant agreement (and this lying).

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Distinguished virologists in the field do not all discount this possibility (see paper by Angus Dalgleish and Sorensen- both respected virologists active in the field).

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That is true, but it has been the case all along. And again, most of their claims are being embellished by outside sources citing them. Their claims largely consist of stating how it's POSSIBLE it came from a lab, not that it did or many cases they even think it did.

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The main voices that have quickly discounted this possibility are WHO and Fauci.

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That's correct, but it's clear from the emails and WHO documentation they suppressed this info for purposes other than actually knowing it to be true. They didn't want to create the perception that it COULD be true. Which makes this evidence not that the virus actually came from a lab but of malfeasance and manipulation towards the public.

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That's like my mechanic doing a brake job on my car and the next day I die in a car wreck due to failed brakes and he shreds every record of me ever being there.

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It's more like shredding every record of you being there because the public perception that you MIGHT have been there could get the "wrong" guy elected President.

If the Wuhan lab was conducting gain of function research using NIH or other funding intended for other purposes, and even if this is how SARCoV2 came to be, the fault lies squarely with the Chinese and their researchers. The NIH helps fund international research efforts all the time and it has led to some breathtaking scientific achievements, so such activity is not inherently a bad thing. The action that made them and defenders in government look bad was the attempt to suppress discussion of this topic. That was when the blame shifted at least partially to them.

Now why would they do that? It seems to be far more likely that this was for political gain here and financial preservation intentionally, as opposed to a vast cover up of intentional involvement in the creation of such a virus. And because of this, I don't think there's much we can draw with respect to whether or not the virus actually came from that lab. This all seems like an effort to prevent public perception that Trump could be right about the Chinese, and to avoid angering the CCP. Those factors are in play even if the lab has nothing to do with it.

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I'd say if that money or money from our military helped fund what eventually led to the accidental or intentional release of the virus, they absolutely deserve some of the blame..

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Then you are forced to argue they should never be giving grants to anyone, anywhere, ever on the basis that someone might lie about the funding utilization and it slip through the cracks. And scientific innovation both here and globally suddenly takes a huge it.

coolerguy12 said:

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It's astonishing how nonchalant you are about being lied to by "nothing short of fantastic" Faucci.

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I mean, how am I supposed to behave? Should I be screeching from the rooftops and bleeding all over a keyboard like so many others? Is that somehow a more productive response?

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I'm sure that's all he lied about right?

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But that's not really relevant to this discussion. It's a fact of public record no NIH grants have ever been given for that purpose.

GAC06 said:

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But they don't know what they really funded. So maybe they did.

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Sure, but Fauci can't be lying about that unless you propose a wild conspiracy theory that would amount to him committing treason and a host for other federal felonies and international human rights violations.

coolerguy12 said:

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Infection_Ag11 said:

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coolerguy12 said:

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It's astonishing how nonchalant you are about being lied to by "nothing short of fantastic" Faucci.

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I mean, how am I supposed to behave? Should I be screeching from the rooftops and bleeding all over a keyboard like so many others? Is that somehow a more productive response?

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I'm sure that's all he lied about right?

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But that's not really relevant to this discussion. It's a fact of public record no NIH grants have ever been given for that purpose.

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Yes the medical community should be calling out Faucci for his lies instead of trying to explain them away and excuse them. I guess I'm just old fashion in my view of "or tolerate those who do"

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But I am calling him out for what we know, he should not have gone along with the molding of a narrative for political purposes. That violated a host of ethical principles his profession is founded upon.

GAC06 said:

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The simplest answer is that he helped suppress the lab origin story to cover his ass

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I think the simpler answer is he went along with the suppression as part of a larger political plot to hurt Trump, given how demonstrably prevalent such behavior was across the American landscape.

His own emails read like a man asking if this was possible and then being talked into helping suppress the possibility that it came from a lab, not one with personal knowledge of the events in the lab and formulating a plot himself.

I can buy that too. Still pretty despicable

I appreciate what you're doing here. Trying to stay grounded in what we KNOW vs what it could potentially mean. Hard to know what to believe with all the obvious untruth out there. Much of it delivered by "experts."

Edit: removed commentary not helpful for this forum