Inneresting…
Ambassador Nicholas Burns told a US Chamber of Commerce event
It’s interesting to watch a subset of y’all basically jump in on right wing talking points. That’s a GWB nominee who worked for the Cohen Group and called Snowden a traitor. Is that really what you’re going to hitch your wagon to? Especially when there’s no evidence presented?
Better than Dr John though, so that’s an improvement for Churchill at least.
Other US agencies have drawn differing conclusions, with varying degrees of confidence in their findings. The FBI in 2021 concluded with “moderate confidence” that the virus leaked from a lab.
There was that recent interesting article too, that suggested that Covid may have been in China earlier than you know when. Like October time. Like when we haven’t yet traced covid geonome back to.
As always, the US government is a lying, malicious force for evil in the world, except when it agrees with what you want to be true.
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inside track…
It’s more the US Gobernment can’t come out with an agreed US position. FBI this, Department of Energy that, Ikes: didn’t read, but…’
Brits remaining tight-lipped, probably got more info than most but need to be sure
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Cool what’s the evidence for the lab leak again? How does it compare to the peer reviewed work showing the outbreak was consistent with a zoonotic origin?
That’s two years old and, of course, almost anything is feasible.
Feasible in 2021 is not confidence in 2023. Even low confidence seems to infer some confidence.
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Here’s 2022:
And 2020:
Sure seems like Brits have been running their mouths the whole time.
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I am coming around to the sad conclusion that everybody everywhere is susceptible to right wing talking points all the time. It actually takes a fair amount of practice and habit building to have the instincts to question and combat their propaganda. Kind of like how practically everybody is susceptible to the attraction of junk food but people with good dietary “hygiene” practices don’t consumer it constantly and suffer terrible resultant consequences.
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Try reading one more paragraph. Just one! I believe in you!
The one that starts 
?
Is this Fox article peer reviewed? If it wasn’t, it is now. Old Wookie would never quote Fox.
Dude is fairly knowledgable - lab leak may have legs yet. Shame I’m not a betting man.
Colonel Hamish Stephen de Bretton-Gordon OBE (born September 1963) is a chemical weapons expert and was a director of SecureBio Limited until its dissolution on 17 August 2017.[1] He was formerly a British Army officer for 23 years and commanding officer of the UK’s Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment and NATO’s Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion.[2] He is a visiting lecturer in disaster management at Bournemouth University.[3] He attended Tonbridge School and has a degree in agriculture from the University of Reading (1987).[ citation needed ]
He has commented on chemical and biological weapons for the BBC,[4] ABC[5] and The Guardian .[6]
Anyways, what’s the evidence for the lab leak again? Be specific
The problem I have against this is that the number of people who understand the science (DNA similarity to prior viruses, precursor virus, ect.) is about 1/100 of the people who comment on this issue, as least in terms of there being any non-natural development of the virus, and the explanation for why there was/wasn’t a lab leak are inherently complex enough to be disregarded by all but the most careful and knowledgeable commentators, who are drowned out in any discussion.
As I’ve always believed, I’m perfectly willing to accept lab leak, but I also know that 99% of discussion of the issue is uninformed and driven by considerations separate from reality.
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I know you are prejudiced against anything American, but there is a Telegraph link there for you if you wish. It’s paywalled, though.
That’s a big part of the issue.
But honestly, the issue isn’t that complex. Our evidence available to us is far from perfect, but the highest quality evidence very much goes one way and it’s far from nothing. The evidence for the lab leak is basically ‘china spooky’, ‘the lab is right there’ and ‘this agency report leaked says maybe’.
If we get more evidence then reasonable people can change their minds on what’s most likely, and the uninformed will claim some sort of superiority if the balance of evidence ever actually changes as if they were ever right.
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The only thing I saw about lab leak looking at some stuff last night was something about furin sites or furin cleavage? Do you know what that is?
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