https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/11/us/politics/covid-lab-lea... and https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/27/media/covid-19-origins-lab-le...

In short a few prominent people claimed it was racist to suggest that China's research or wet market contributed to the origins of COVID. They were mistaken but with the highly politicized environment, it helped distort opinions at a critical time. The claims of racism have since been demonstrated to be at least partly false (that is, there is a legitimate case to be made that China's researchers or wet market did contribute to the origin of COVID, and that China's leadership hid most of the evidence that would be used to make a case).

It's not racist to blame China, but it is racist to accuse/harass/disparage Asian people and that was what was happening in America. Pushing back on the lab leak theory was at least in part to stop the dumbest among us from blaming their Asian neighbor. That and the lack of evidence.

Both happened.

People who merely "suggested" the lab could have leaked, and asked to investigate more, were being called racist.

It was racism to suggest that China’s only level4 bio lab that received funding for coronavirus research was the source of the leak…

But not racism to declare that the virus must have come from a wet market where the savages eat uncooked bats and pangolin.

Now the goal posts have shifted to “lack of evidence” knowing full well china would nuke the city before admitting they caused covid by negligence.

The WIV was doing research on bat coronaviruses at BSL-2, not BSL-4. See Ralph Baric's testimony covered in this Vanity Fair article:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/ralph-baric-wuhan-lab-...

Conflation of very different factors. Animal origin was always going to be the most likely explanation, so wet market tracks. Lab leak after secret gain of function research is much more of a speculatory accusation than the existence of wet markets.

Saying COVID-19 leaked from a lab with zero evidence is different than waiting for evidence and then saying it leaked from a lab.

There were very good arguments that Covid (probably) leaked from a lab as early as April 2020 at the latest (and in January if you were a virologist included in top-level NIAID emails). HN largely went along with the shunning of debate, which helped give everyone the impression there was "zero evidence" of a lab leak compared to solid evidence of zoonotic origin, which was simply never true.

https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...

Censoring views that it came from a lab leak with zero evidence isn't any better. In fact I remember being lied to by major news outlets at the time saying that the evidence points to a non lab origin.

It did though. Animal origin only stopped being the most favored explanation because we haven't found the link in 5 years.

There was a nucleotide sequence in the covid strain that did not show up in any of the proposed hosts or progenitor viral sequences, which is where leaked documents showed NIH (Fauci included I believe) discussing the non-natural origin of the nucleotide sequence. It's possible to search for articles about the Fauci NIH emails, and whether they mean anything scandalous.

Here's a technical article at NIH discussing the theory of no known natural origin for a nucleotide subsequence

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8209872/

This is an open access journal by two people whose publication history you can look up if you want to draw your own conclusions. Read the disclaimer at the top of the link. Don’t bootstrap its credibility by linking it to being at NIH (which does mean something) anymore than saying something found on Google is from the company itself.

Don’t imagine any bootstrapping of credibility is stated. It’s a citation to one article of many with no assertion otherwise. That’s how science discussions work.

This is interesting, thanks for sharing.

I'm confused, do you mean the animal origin had no evidence either, but was favoured? But not having evidence for 5 years suddenly makes the other theory favoured instead?

So basically neither had real evidence, but one was favoured?

False equivalence. Zoonotic diseases have precedent (SARS, MERS) and SARS-CoV-2 most closely resembles BANAL-52, a bat Coronavirus.

Animal origin still seems more likely to me, but less than 5 years ago, since we have a missing link one would expect to see.

Animal origin does not contradict a lab leak however. Especially if you have a biolab studying coronaviruses in bats in the city identified as ground zero.

It does favor an accidental lab leak over a targeted weaponization and release, but it doesn't contradict a lab origin.

Coronavirus lab leaks in China also had precedent. What's your point?

There was no evidence for a zoonotic origin other than it was possible.

There was little evidence for a lab leak other than it was possible, but at least there was some.

That is not true at all. Some scientists at the time suspected a lab leak, talk of which was deliberately shut down.

"Dr Robert Redfield, who led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the Trump administration, told Vanity Fair that he received death threats from fellow scientists when he backed the Wuhan lab leak theory last spring. "I was threatened and ostracised because I proposed another hypothesis," Dr Redfield said. "I expected it from politicians. I didn't expect it from science."[1]"

The US State Department were told to not to explore claims of Gains of Function research:

"According to an investigation in Vanity Fair magazine published on Thursday, Department of State officials discussed the origins of coronavirus at a meeting on 9 December 2020. They were told not to explore claims about gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan lab to avoid attracting unwelcome attention to US government funding of such research, reports Vanity Fair.[2]"

We may never know the truth, but its clear that there was politics being played since the beginning of the pandemic to obscure the truth, and not just by China.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57352992

[2] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-...

A lot of careers are tied up in research that isn't gain of function officially, but sure looks like it.

Yes, but the rush to the wet market theory was no better.

Wasn't it? Most of the earliest cases had a link to the market, many of whom were vendors including the very first known case. The early cases which had no known link lived/stayed clustered around the market. The market sold live wild animals which were known reservoirs for the previous coronavirus break (SARS).

How can following a trail possibly be no better?

There was also no evidence against it. If there is neither solid evidence for nor against something I find it perfectly reasonable to apply the balance of probabilities. At least as long as you qualify your statement with a "probably".

And with the main competing theory (covid spreading from a wet market in a city that contains a biolab) also being consistent with the hypothesis that it was an accidental lab leak, to me the balance of probabilities always seemed to favor the lab leak hypothesis.

Yet saying that Covid probably originated from a lab leak was once branded as dangerous misinformation, with seemingly no evidence to support that claim

At the time, there was essentially a 50/50 chance it was a lab leak or from a wet market. The issue with saying it was a lab leak at that time is that you are essentially gambling the US's relationship with China should it come out that it was a from a wet market. Also, a lot of the discussion regarding the lab leak theory early on seemed to me like it wouldn't be sated even if the US presented sufficient evidence that it was from a wet market.

But we can say it leaked from wet market without evidence!

The lab leak theory was started by Chinese netizens. It was mentioned on Chinese media. Hell the name Wu Flu came from Chinese media.

I think the issue falls into the problem of getting reliable information out of China.

Because of a lack of access and free speech it's hard to get verifiable evidence to it's origin being from a lab leak or a market in either direction.

Unfortunately, because of that lack of access mistrust and conspiracy theories spread like wild fires.

It's important with science to understand that there is what happened or what is observed and to separate that away from wishful thinking or feelings.

> while most people (here too) cheered for "fighting misinformation" with censorship?

Exactly right. Remember any comment daring to question the authorities was shouted down to oblivion. Anyone daring to question lockdowns or other draconian measures were met with fire and brimstone. I lost a lot of respect for HN during Covid.

I feel it’s important to not forget the level of adherence to authoritarian rule that infected the population during Covid. Even places like HN were not immune. “Just following orders” was SOP even here.

It was censored because every single time it was mentioned anywhere conversation always veered towards "kill the dirty fucking ch**ks ".

You know this, and I know that you know this.

If people had even an infinitesimally small amount of self control there could have been an open and honest discussion, and in professional publications there was.

Literally and actually with no exceptions in every single forum where you have to participate using your own name so you could be held accountable for what you said, discussion as to whether or not it was a lab leak never stopped.

But you know, and I know, and I know that you fucking know so don't try to deny it, that EVERY single time it was brought up on social media or mainstream news, discussion turned into "kill the dirty fucking ch**ks".

Therefore, stories were removed. Or de-emphasized. Or nuked when things got out of hand.

It's the same thing with stories about the middle east. They turn into "kill the dirty fucking sand n****rs", and stories about urban violence "the blacks are at it again".

I know that you know what I'm talking about but to hammer it home, I took the time to read (edit: practically) every word you've written on hn (edit: to make sure I wasn't responding to a "just asking" troll) and in your case it would be stories about crime leading to calls for Roma genocide and then those stories being nuked because bigoted pieces of shit can't go 30 seconds without wanting to talk about killing someone they hate.

It was malinformation. Whether it is misinformation or not is irrelevant.

I'm assuming this is satire?

Yes.

Concern about China is not partisan anymore, pretty much everyone is on board now.

Also from the article: "Officials said the agency was not bending its views to a new boss, and that the new assessment had been in the works for some time."

But we know Trump lies, and that people around him change their story and lie for him, and we know he gets rid of personnel who don't 'kiss the ring'... and this comes at the exact instant that he says he's going to start his import tariffs for Chinese goods and needs media support to convince USA-ians that making all goods coming from China now expensive is a good idea...

I mean you're going to need extraordinary evidence to show this is true; but CIA say there's no new evidence and it's a low confidence conclusion.

Probability that it's just Trump continuing to be deceitful and manipulative approaches certainty.

Trump can nominate a CIA director, but cannot appoint a CIA director.

Once a CIA director gets confirmed, they can influence hiring decisions at the CIA, but that takes time.

This was investigated for a long while before Trump was even president. This was started under Biden.

Trump doesn't have that many people left to convince that China is problematic.

The CIA isn't the first to conclude this, but also the FBI and the DoE. Both of their reports came out under the Biden administration.

This doesn't appear to be a new trend or a dramatic shift in conclusion as a result of Trump becoming president.

Every thing wrong or suspicious in the world is not suddenly Trump's fault. This is trump derangement syndrome.

Are they really anti-china? Or are they just trying to shake down China for some cash?

There is now a broad consensus across the national security establishment and the leadership of both major political parties that China must be treated as an adversary. Attempts at constructive engagement failed so now we have to pivot to containment in Cold War 2. This is a strategic issue that transcends money.

Agreed. But the president's sudden 180 on the tiktok ban leaves me questioning his motives.

If this is true some of it may have been funded by the US, so it makes both countries look bad.

Trump (and Elon) are actually fairly pro-China. Or at least, Trump and Xi have a good relationship (and Trump was quoted last month as believing the US and China can solve many problems together), and Elon loves China.

They’re pro-themselves. China could bankrupt Musk at the stroke of a pen by kicking Tesla out, so he’s effectively their foreign agent. Trump wants bribes, and he has leverage via his unchecked power over tariffs. He even opened a convenient collection box via his cryptocurrency.

They’re well-oiled grift machines.

It wasn't forbidden, it lacked evidence, which it still does, even under this highly biased new administration.

It was forbidden since users were banned for talking about it. That is what is meant by forbidden. When an authority exercises their power over you to stop you.

For a banned topic I sure saw tons of posts and discussion about it.