[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

Well here’s an article from the Washington post saying that it’s possible this could have been an accidental release from the bio lab.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.wash...outputType=amp

That's not an article, that is an opinion piece. Clearly identified as an opinion as it is run in the Opinions section.

Highlights include:
No evidence of bats being sold at this seafood market
The bats that carry these viruses live in southern China, 1000s of Km’s from Wuhan
Bat coronaviruses were being studied at the virology institute
Institute is 300 yards from seafood market
First case had no known link to seafood market
Articles postulating this could have been an accidental release scrubbed from Chinese internet.

What a strange interpretation of this piece. How did you miss this statement, that was made TWICE in the column.

"U.S. intelligence officials think there’s no evidence whatsoever that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory as a potential bioweapon. Solid scientific research demonstrates that the virus wasn’t engineered by humans and that it originated in bats."

The primary source for the claim that the cover story may be bogus? IFLS.com. That's "I ####ing Love Science" a web site that looks at the funny side of science.

The column also makes many errors. Starting with this beauty which seems to be the basis for this post.

"The Lancet noted in a January study that the first covid-19 case in Wuhan had no connection to the seafood market."

This patently false. The original Lancet study can be found here. In that study it clearly states,"7 (66%) patients had direct exposure to Huanan seafood market (figure 1B). Market exposure was similar between the patients with ICU care (nine [69%]) and those with non-ICU care (18 [64%]). The symptom onset date of the first patient identified was Dec 1, 2019. None of his family members developed fever or any respiratory symptoms. No epidemiological link was found between the first patient and later cases. The first fatal case, who had continuous exposure to the market, was admitted to hospital because of a 7-day history of fever, cough, and dyspnoea."

There’s a microbiologist from Rutgers quoted in the story, hopefully he’s credible enough for the people on this board. It’s at least a possibility, nothing more nothing less. In any case, postulating that scientists know 100% that this originated from an animal market is just dumb. It’s weird to see this pandemic play out and people refuse to allow possibilities for variance in things we most assuredly don’t know, like transmissibility fatality rates and origin. No one has a scientific background I guess.

Here's what the scientist said. "Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist and biosafety expert, told me in an email that “the first human infection could have occurred as a natural accident,” with the virus passing from bat to human, possibly through another animal. But Ebright cautioned that it “also could have occurred as a laboratory accident, with, for example, an accidental infection of a laboratory worker.”

He postulates two things, without having proof or data to support either statement. Considering the data available in the Lancet article - a real scientific journal article - it kind of takes apart Ebright's thesis. I suspect that Ignatius reached out to him with a question framed to get a specific response and the good doctor followed through with an academic's pat answer of "could be this, or it could be that, I don't know because I don't have the data to tell you one way or another." This is why the article is an opinion piece. No way would the paper publish this as a news article without support of the claims and fact checking everything about the claims.