That “evidence” is literally nothing. It can’t be disproven, but other than that there’s nothing backing it up.
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You forgot that there’s a lab in the area!
(seriously think that’s the entirety of the evidence, there’s the stuff about the PRRA or whatever but that wasn’t backed afaict by anyone legit)
And this is horseshit, too. It’s possible but much less likely than other explanations has been the consistent message from just about everyone other than the hot take artists.
Here’s some more of all that literal nothing that was just published this afternoon.
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Well, I suppose that’s evidence of some sort but it’s not even a little bit compelling. 3 people getting sick during cold and flu season isn’t exactly dramatic.
Admittedly I can’t read the full article but hey it’s the wsj.
You can get more of the story at Forbes and Fox News. 
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Yes, hand wave this away just like everything else. Very on brand. Pretend like I linked to a flat earther’s substack.
Excerpts for the paywall challenged:
Current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed differing views about the strength of the supporting evidence for the assessment. One person said that it was provided by an international partner and was potentially significant but still in need of further investigation and additional corroboration.
Another person described the intelligence as stronger. “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality. It was very precise. What it didn’t tell you was exactly why they got sick,” he said, referring to the researchers.
November 2019 is roughly when many epidemiologists and virologists believe SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the pandemic, first began circulating around the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where Beijing says that the first confirmed case was a man who fell ill on Dec. 8, 2019.
The Wuhan Institute hasn’t shared raw data, safety logs and lab records on its extensive work with coronaviruses in bats, which many consider the most likely source of the virus.
Long characterized by skeptics as a conspiracy theory, the hypothesis that the pandemic could have begun with a lab accident has attracted more interest from scientists who have complained about the lack of transparency by Chinese authorities or conclusive proof for the alternate hypothesis: that the virus was contracted by humans from a bat or other infected animal outside a lab.
Many proponents of the lab hypothesis say that a virus that was carried by an infected bat might have been brought to the lab so that researchers could work on potential vaccines—only to escape.
While the lab hypothesis is being taken more seriously, including by Biden administration officials, the debate is still colored by political tensions, including over how much evidence is needed to sustain the hypothesis.
The WHO-led team that visited Wuhan concluded in a joint report with Chinese experts in March that the virus most likely spread from bats to humans via another animal, and that a laboratory leak was “extremely unlikely.”
However, team members said they didn’t view raw data or original lab, safety and other records. On the same day the report came out, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the team hadn’t adequately examined the lab leak hypothesis, and called for a fuller probe of the idea.
Members of the WHO-led team said Chinese counterparts had identified 92 potential Covid-19 cases among some 76,000 people who fell sick between October and early December 2019, but turned down requests to share raw data on the larger group. That data would help the WHO-led team understand why China sought to only test those 92 people for antibodies.
Team members also said they asked for access to a Wuhan blood bank to test samples from before December 2019 for antibodies. Chinese authorities declined at first, citing privacy concerns, then agreed, but have yet to provide that access, team members say.
So that’s 89 people with no connection to the WIV also getting sick during the same timeframe?
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If they had characteristic symptoms of Covid-19, they’d say exactly as much, but instead it’s “symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.” This is exactly how you’d spin covid conspiracy theories out of people having the common flu from uNnAmEd SoUrCeS FaMiLiAr wItH tHe MaTtEr. If I’m remembering right, WSJ was called out for doing exactly that kind of bullshit fairly recently.
I have a B.Sc. with a major in organic chemistry and took genetics and biochemistry up until second year.
89/76,000 is way, way, way, way, way less than 3 out of however many people work at the WIV. (Not that I consider the sicknesses very good evidence).
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Not even new. Was sure I had heard of this before.
I stand by my statement.
Why do doctors have such a reputation for condescension and arrogance? It’s a mystery.
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It all started with me that’s for sure.
If you want to say that means you have a ‘scientific background’ go for it. I don’t care. It won’t change that you linked to a racist piece of shit guy who wrote that medium paper and got fooled by its idiocy badly. God knows what trash you’re reading online that got you to that medium article.
Dude, is this you?
Now you’re citing Tedros, something you earlier described as “full Alex Jones”, to argue that the WHO are open to the lab leak theory, despite the fact that you earlier described the report as “all but completely ruling out the lab being involved”. You’re doing this while trying to pretend you have been a model of consistency ITT. This is rising to the level of performance art.
What has happened ITT is that lab leak skeptics have been consistent in their view that lab leak is unlikely, but the definition of “unlikely” has shifted like two orders of magnitude.
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We doing 1 post per day slow mode for the next week ITT. There is just too much hostility.
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Just want to go on record using my one post.
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I haven’t weighed in much itt because frankly the discussion here seems rooted in culture war nonsense and not science. The idea that investigating every possible vector of the most serious health, social and economic disaster in history is somehow problematic is just bizarre.
Furthermore, the idea that questioning the Chinese government is somehow racist stretches all credulity. It’s one of the most anti-democratic, statist, secretive and obsessed with image nations on earth. It’s racist to think they have an incentive to hide possible culpability in the global pandemic?
Nobody knows for sure, or even with a high scientific confidence, what the source of the virus was therefore further research is obviously warranted.
Based on my limited reading and understanding of the science I’d bet my money on zoonotic but people need to stop acting like it’s 1:1,000,000,000 it’s lab born or that those wanting investigation are somehow foaming at the mouth nazis.
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I was 99% on the natural source-wildlife of some sort and that was a year ago when my brother started with the Lab leak theory, nowadays I’m 98% on the Natural source.
My fear was that my brother who likes to read the odd conspiracy theory was going down another rabbit hole and would not get the vaccination.
Fortunately he got the vaccination before me and will get the 2nd, while we argue on who’s right about the origins of Covid-19 and tbh we don’t argue and limit ourselves to around 5 mins a day on the topic which is very good for our mental health.
He has just about managed to get all the information in ti’s thread on his own which is quite impressive and is around the same as me now, that the virus was likely naturally produced but cannot put down the lab leak theory because there is a slight 1% chance.
And I agree tbh, after reading here both sides my point is that it can take literally years to investigate the source of the virus and we have enough resources to do all the steps from 1-4 posted above so why delay?
It ain’t a waste of funds when people are dying in their 1,000 around the world and every angle should be investigated no matter how small because it was a world wide devastating event.
Anyone who argues against all angles being investigated is nieve when we have the resources to do so, after all its only money and time which we have plenty off and the time to micro manage was before the pandemic killed literally millions of humans around the world and how do that work out?
Investigate everything, leave no doubts sound good to me.
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