This isn't consistent.

We have several agencies in the US with differing POVs and varying confidence. To suggest this is settled truth is a fallacy. In any case, even if it is true, it wasn't ascertained to be true at the height of the pandemic.

but the principal problem is that it became political. Eventually one side will be right. But people saying it was a lab leak said so for non-impactful reasons. they just wanted to blame China to help their election chances. The left, of course, couldn't agree with that as that would enable the other side. It's simply politics.

> I know suspicion isn't fact, but that should have always been the leading theory to be disproved

The leading theory should be the thing that has never happened before (lab leak causes epidemic or pandemic) instead of the thing that has happened dozens of times before (animal virus jumps to humans and causes epidemic or pandemic)?

lab leaks do happen. not often but a lot more than never. we were just lucky enough that they didn't result in a global pandemic...

> The leading theory should be the thing that has never happened before (lab leak causes epidemic or pandemic)

It happens pretty often, we just don't hear about most of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity...

That is the nature of a "dog whistle" - it has a legitimate meaning, and some people use the legitimate meaning. That legitimacy gives malicious people plausible deniability. Social media sites cannot tell the difference, and quite often it's very hard for people to tell the difference as well. Social media sprays weed killer on all the discussions because they don't want their app covered in weeds; not having flowers is too bad, but weeds are worse (not my personal view).

To hear a dog whistle you must be a dog. If you keep hearing them everywhere ... well.

To identify a dog whistle you must merely learn its characteristics and recognize them.

Or you have eyes and can see somebody putting a whistle in their mouth and blowing.

That'd be a lot more believable if these people didn't support the most racially inequitable policies since Jim Crow. But hey, doesn't everyone have a garden and no children? Why would lockdowns be a bad idea when you're not living in an inner city apartment with three kids, while working in retail?

Because we had a racist president who said stuff like "China virus" in a stupid and demeaning way--i.e. what may have been a valid and reasonable argument or position had its credibility ruined by being taken up by Trump and his ilk for their own ends.

Naming something by its origin it's not racist. The tone you're talking about is a completely subjective statement, and it has no place in a serious discussion.

Using that name should've never been controversial and making it controversial was creating drama where there was none. The fact that people are still hurt about Trump saying that years ago shows how unprepared we are to have a discussion about anything.

This just willfully tone deaf as to what was going on and being implied then. The other component of it was this kind of "blame China" attitude he was trying to engender to deflect blame, and that's another reason why the theory never caught on.

(Also to be clear, it's not even that the China stuff made him racist; he clearly established himself as a racist, and then he said that stuff, which I agree wasn't necessarily racist. But of course, he wasn't speaking in a vacuum, he was speaking in the context of himself and his whole presidency, which led everyone to naturally assume the worst of it.)

You really like using that word, racist. The problem is that's just your opinion. But you seem to be heavily focused on it. I think this is more of a you problem.

Do you have any evidence that he was a racist? There is more evidence of the lab leak, than that he was a racist.

He also used "Kung Flu." Come on, anyone with a brainstem could see he was promoting anti-Asian sentiment and did nothing to denounce anti-Asian hate crimes at home.

Kung Flu is funny and catchy. Anyone with a brainstem can see you have an anti-humor sentiment.

> had its credibility ruined

Avoid the passive voice.

News companies and social media content moderators, who dislike Trump and overwhelmingly donated to his opponent, decided that the lab leak was not credible.

I mean, indirectly defending China by completely discrediting and demonizing any discussion the origins of a life-changing pandemic... to own Trump? is just... a bit pathetic honestly. It ironically completely ruins the credibility of those who were so keen to completely stonewall a super important issue just because they are so drunk on partisanship that Trunp being right isn't even a possibility. Peak Blue MAGA

Explain why Mers-cov wasn't racist in the 8 years before covid.

Absent of other information, why is this the most probably explanation? It’s possible sure, but the best we could’ve said, especially back then is we don’t know. Viruses from animals jump to humans all the time, and have caused other outbreaks before many times, why is this one special?

> why is this one special?

There was very clearly something exceptional about it, since we shut down much of the world for a year.

> Absent of other information, why is this the most probably explanation?

Again, the simple fact that the most severe viral outbreak in decades originated near a research facility for that same kind of virus, was reason enough to push lab-leak to the top of valid theories.

Correlation vs causation. The lab is where the virus is at. Lots of bats in the area.