Secondly you discuss the lab leak theory at length and construct the state of being that because not A it must be B but there is no dichotomy here, there are many choices, including the fantastical which break Occam's razor but alas may turn out to be true. Simply because we have not found a wild host does not make lableak "true" or even more likely.
I have no idea what the origin is. I'm not in the field, I'm not competent to judge. What I read suggests most people who are competent to judge want more evidence.
If your point is that the CCPs exclusion of external verification of theories is proof, I'm sorry but it's just not proof: there are many reasons why the Chinese government does this, guilt is not a given although fear of guilt is plausible. Shaming the state is not easy or wise for people in this political system and "Strong China" Plays inside the government and the party (they are different things btw) as well as differences between ministries, departments, provinces, external parties make this a very complex problem.
Power struggles often have nothing to do with the ostensible reasons they are fought over.
In a field like mathematics it's obvious that we don't have the necessary tools to evaluate expert evidence, but the same is true in most complex fields, of which epidemiology is certainly one. The experts of course won't always be right, and their best guesses will evolve as more evidence is gathered, as they should. But asking people without specific domain knowledge, even intelligent generalists, to independently weight expert evidence without resorting to trust of experts is likely to result in less informed decision making, not more.
We can't let the sheep make up their own minds, we have to make up their minds for them; for they are only sheep of course, and we are the pigs.
I mean, what would happen in one of those stupid sheep had a thought to themselves? They might think
Hey isn't that a coronavirus reasearch lab right down the street? Maybe
they know something about this new coronavirus?
....
Human beings are built to defer to *legitamite* authority, its a principle of how we organize ourselves. Doesn't matter if its mathematics or goverment. But that legitamacy must be demonstrated. If a mathematician fails to answer basic mathematical questions, then his authority on the subject comes into question. When the authorities fail to answer basic questions (like where did this virus come from? Why aren't we investigating the wuhan lab? Why was Fauci funding it? Why was the man in charge of the WHO investigation the man who was in charge of funding it?), they are failing to demonstrate *legitamite* authority. In a functioning democracy, that failure would be met with replacement.
I also judge most people's opinions are being formed from at best secondary and probably tertiary sources.
I personally think your clarion call isn't helping.
The fact that a lab leak was even possible but it took over a year to get any researchers into the lab is a serious issue for data collection, not to mention the fact that the CCP got to pick those researchers and didn't share any lab records.
Its important that we learn from how this played out, but seems very unrealistic to think we could pinpoint the initial transmission event now.
What definitive evidence can we provide of an animal host now? What definitive evidence can we provide of a lab leak? Of a deliberate release?
I don't think we can provide definitive evidence for any of the options, that proponents of another theory, even the reasonable ones, will accept, so ... I believe it is exactly 3 angels.
Does it? It's brought up in nearly every covid related thread both here and on Reddit. I couldn't avoid talking about it or reading about it even if I tried.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352536433_Prometheu...
His research is ongoing: https://prometheusshrugged.substack.com/
Authorities seem to stand behind the Wuhan "wet market" theory but there's really no evidence of that, specifically if it came from an animal population, how come 2+ years later we haven't found that animal population? Also the bat coronavirus population is hundreds of miles away so how did this end up in Wuhan?
This brings us to the "lab leak" theory. There are lots of possibilities here. If this is true (and that's a mighty big IF) then my suspicion is that this was an accident and the CCP doesn't necessarily know what happened but there's absolutely incentivized not to find out. I find claims that this was a deliberate release to be unconvincing.
The key factors supporting this theory, or at least are open questions requiring further investigation are:
1. There's really no compelling alternative theory supported by substantial evidence;
2. The WHO has really lost a lot of credibility here. In early 2020, the WHO was bending over backwards not to upset China and not much has changed. In 2021 there was a joint investigation with the Chinese but the scope was pretty limited;
3. There used to be a database of coronaviruses that China had. In late 2019 this was taken offline. To date AFAIK this has never been examined by WHO investigators or any independent authority. Now this doesn't prove anything by itself but you'd think a thorough investigation would include examining it in its scope.
4. A long time (over a year) passed between the start of the outbreak and the investigation. This is a long time for evidence to go cold or "missing".
To compare, the origins of two previous coronavirus outbreaks (ie SARS and MERS) were relatively quickly identified.
No lab worker or official wants to be responsible for a leak (if there was one). No one wants to find out they were responsible. The CCP also doesn't want to set the precedent they're answerable or accountable to international authorities. This is what I mean when I say I suspect the CCP doesn't know and doesn't want to know.