As a follow-up to this post, the 'lab leak' theory on the COVID pandemic's origins is now looking highly probable at this point, despite the best efforts of the Chinese Communist Party and various American "experts" like Dr. Anthony Fauci. I've long argued that some of the strongest circumstantial evidence supporting this conclusion is the CCP's fervent efforts to prevent a real, independent probe into the matter. If, as they insisted, the virus had emerged naturally, and therefore wasn't their fault, they would have ushered in every scientist in the world to confirm that reality. They'd have presented the evidence. They'd have been transparent because it was in their interests to be transparent, in this instance. But that's not what they did. They did the opposite. Perhaps because they didn't want facts like this coming to light:
A prominent scientist who worked on coronavirus projects funded by the U.S. government is one of three Chinese researchers who became sick with an unspecified illness during the initial outbreak of Covid-19, according to current and former U.S. officials. The identity and role of the researchers is one piece of intelligence that has been cited by proponents of the judgment that the pandemic originated with a lab leak, though the nature of their illness hasn’t been conclusively established. Ben Hu, a scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who had done extensive laboratory research on how coronaviruses infect humans, was identified in U.S. intelligence reports as one of the researchers who became ill in November 2019 with symptoms that American officials said were consistent with either Covid-19 or a seasonal illness. None of the researchers died. More than three years after the pandemic began, and with almost seven million deaths around the world, the virus’s origins remain a subject of debate...
Three sickened scientists. The Wuhan Institute of Virology. November 2019. All highly relevant strands of information, especially the last one:
For those having trouble understanding the significance: If a Wuhan coronavirus scientist had Covid-19 in NOVEMBER, all the seafood market people pointing to early cases in DECEMBER can’t be talking about the original outbreak - because November comes before December. https://t.co/Yd2rPSJGpF
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) June 20, 2023
To recap thus far, perhaps the very earliest known or suspected cases of COVID-19 likely occurred in Chinese scientists working at the Wuhan lab, which had a track record of shoddy biomedical security incidents. This was the same institute where, according to the Times of London, the Chinese government and military were conducting "classified," "covert," and "dangerous" experiments in order to artificially create "the world’s most deadly coronaviruses to create a new mutant virus just as the pandemic began." And the global epicenter of the pandemic, where it indisputably started, was...Wuhan, China. I'm merely a layperson, but absent an extensive forensic and scientific analysis that the host country has gone to great lengths to prevent -- including blocking access, punishing whistleblowers, and destroying evidence -- the now-available fact pattern seems pretty damn conclusive about how and where this deadly worldwide pandemic started.
But even whispering a syllable about the lab leak, let alone the Chinese Military's possible role in the experiments at said lab, was verboten and censored inside the United States for quite some time. Just ask Sen. Tom Cotton, and any number of other people, who were attacked, mocked, throttled, or punished for raising obvious questions along these lines. Terms like "conspiracy theory" and "misinformation" were hurled. It was even routinely suggested that it was racist to mention such things, whereas breezily stating that China's filthy, fetid wet markets were the true culprit was deemed correct and non-racist. Why? One of the top enforcers of what could, and could not, be said was Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose proclamations were treated as gospel by many individuals and institutions that control and dominate the flow of information.
Behind the scenes, Fauci received an email thanking him for publicly knocking down 'lab leak' talk, sent by a researcher with a strong financial incentives to make that theory go away. Fauci also helped commission and "prompt" a study specifically for the purpose of 'disproving' the lab leak -- which he later touted in his official capacity, without disclosing his own role in its provenance and review. In 2021, Fauci (who fancies himself the very embodiment of Science Itself) called the likelihood that COVID leaked from the Wuhan lab "very, very, very, very remote." As recently as March of this year, the New York Times reiterated Fauci's long-stated view that "he believes the preponderance of the evidence shows that the pandemic originated in nature." We know why Fauci's friend (the one who wrote that infamous thank you email) might be deeply invested in any "lab leak" talk disappearing. Why might Fauci have had a similar similar stake in that sort of narrative control?
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Acting CIA Director Michael Morrell in April 2020: "If it did escape from the lab, not only bad on China, but also bad on the U.S. for giving funding to a lab with safety concerns." https://t.co/WQuUphBNAF pic.twitter.com/6mchaiOiRH
— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) June 19, 2023
And who was knee-deep in such grant and funding decisions? Dr. Anthony Fauci. This thread is important, especially the point it makes about censorship, but one line stopped me in my tracks:
This is why it's dangerous to advocate vast censorship of conspiratorial ideas. Every now and then, one of those ideas turns out correct. Fauci, the person picked to stop the pandemic, is indirectly responsible for causing the pandemic. Sounds crazy! But it's true.
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) June 21, 2023
"Fauci, the person picked to stop the pandemic, is indirectly responsible for causing the pandemic." Soave is right that this "sounds crazy," but it very much does look true. And I'd suggest that it's more than plausible that Fauci was well aware of this from the very early days, which would explain a lot of the things he said on the COVID origins question. I'll leave you with two more examples of the what the Experts did, and what the 'Science' has wrought:
People don’t trust these institutions and figures bc they did not prove to be trustworthy. https://t.co/cZzbzL76T8
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) June 21, 2023
Breaking News: Math and reading scores for 13-year-olds in the U.S. have hit the lowest levels in decades, with a sharp drop since the pandemic began.https://t.co/wfQDAlZ1qR
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 21, 2023