On Covid-19 Origins, Elites Followed Politics, Not Science
It is a disturbing prospect, like something out of a science fiction novel, but it s appearing increasingly plausible nonetheless: the cause of the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed millions and cost tens of trillions of dollars, may have been a viral escape from a Wuhan, China virology laboratory.
The latest indicator pointing toward a man-made catastrophe that, until now, has been obscured with the aid of credulous media and scientists comes from the Wall Street Journal, which reported that U.S. intelligence found that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized in November 2019 with symptoms consistent with Covid-19. That is well before the Chinese government s claim that the first confirmed case occurred on December 8, 2019. This new report echoes a January 15, 2021 State Department fact sheet that reported several Wuhan Institute researchers became ill in autumn 2019. The steady accumulation of circumstantial evidence has prompted President Biden to order a review.
In a letter a few days ago published in Nature, which I’m not going to link to, some virologist was bemoaning the fact that this new interest in the lab hypothesis was making the debate over the virus origins “toxic” and vulnerable to various forms of racism. I take this as evidence that some scientists are incapable of feeling shame. This is perhaps another reason not to do gain-of-function research.