FBI chief Christopher Wray says China lab leak most likely

[Zeph]

FBI Director Christopher Wray has said that the bureau believes Covid-19 most likely originated in a Chinese government-controlled lab.

"The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident," he told Fox News.

It is the first public confirmation of the FBI's classified judgement of how the pandemic virus emerged.

[Zeph]

Finally –after all the dodging and baseless attacks at denouncing all facts pointing to this– the truth is told. Hope this leads to more truth to see the light.

[DnBLover]

I had actually seen the original piece from Fox News, and I have to say I was pretty impressed that all that evidence was being dusted off. Only shows how politicisation of everything is terrible for society. There is a lot to be said about this...

[marat2408]

Well, if FBI said, then it's true (sarcasm). Where are the facts and international investigation?

[LittleLinda]

We all know that a degree in virology is mandatory for all aspiring FBI agents, so I really don’t understand why people are demanding evidence…

[jordi_89]

This has been a theory for almost 2 years now. Maybe there's no "hard proof" of it yet. But I haven't seen people completely rule it out. I don't think an accidental leak is something so crazy to "cover up" or anything. It's bad? Yes. But accidents happen, in Western labs as well.

[DnBLover]

Where is the hard proof of the animal origin theory?... Hard proof rarely exists. What does exist is evidence.

This will do nothing but undermine already dying confidence that the public has in the official and scientific institutions. So what did they think was best for the public? Lie and/or omit facts, try to pretend it didnt happen, etc. This is the huge problem we face right now. Anyone that works in science knows that everything is up to question, nothing is certain, and it takes good quality studies before anything can be ascertained.

For me, the confidence must be regained by being open about uncertainty to the public. Sponsoring an unknown hypothesis as fact from day 1 is propaganda, nothing to do with science or the scientific method.

[CrazyCrazy]

Well this isn’t a surprise tbh.

[zagan0401]

We all know that a degree in virology is mandatory for all aspiring FBI agents, so I really don’t understand why people are demanding evidence…

the text of the thread doesn't make it clear, but no one thinks it was an intentional escape

accidental escapes have already happened in America and are common in Europe

[LittleLinda]

the text of the thread doesn't make it clear, but no one thinks it was an intentional escape

accidental escapes have already happened in America and are common in Europe

I’m well aware of that, and I find it entirely possible that the virus escaped from a lab. What I find comical is that a governmental body with no expertise on the subject claims to know “what really happened” while at the same time not being able to say what they are basing this finding on. How am I expected to trust that assessment when it has the same value as my neighbour stating their gut feeling on the matter?

Is a natural outbreak fact? No, scientists are well aware that they haven’t been able to prove it beyond a doubt, but they have the expertise to assess certain probabilities.
For the FBI, a non-expert, to go against that must mean that they have some sort of evidence to prove that there was a lab leak - which they so far refuse to say anything about. So basically they are going against the experts without any explanation as to how they know better.

There’s probably good reason as to why they cannot disclose anything about their findings, but then maybe they should’ve waited to publicise anything at all.

Then again, facts don’t matter to the public anymore, especially not in the US, so maybe they just went “who cares, we’re the FBI. They’ll believe us.”
But you cannot tell me that they aren’t aware how many nutcases will jump on this and take it as proof of an intentional Chinese attack. Which is why this reeks of an intentional attempt to politicise the whole thing rather than a genuine attempt to uncover the truth.

[zagan0401]

I’m well aware of that, and I find it entirely possible that the virus escaped from a lab. What I find comical is that a governmental body with no expertise on the subject claims to know “what really happened” while at the same time not being able to say what they are basing this finding on. How am I expected to trust that assessment when it has the same value as my neighbour stating their gut feeling on the matter?

Is a natural outbreak fact? No, scientists are well aware that they haven’t been able to prove it beyond a doubt, but they have the expertise to assess certain probabilities.
For the FBI, a non-expert, to go against that must mean that they have some sort of evidence to prove that there was a lab leak - which they so far refuse to say anything about. So basically they are going against the experts without any explanation as to how they know better.

There’s probably good reason as to why they cannot disclose anything about their findings, but then maybe they should’ve waited to publicise anything at all.

Then again, facts don’t matter to the public anymore, especially not in the US, so maybe they just went “who cares, we’re the FBI. They’ll believe us.”
But you cannot tell me that they aren’t aware how many nutcases will jump on this and take it as proof of an intentional Chinese attack. Which is why this reeks of an intentional attempt to politicise the whole thing rather than a genuine attempt to uncover the truth.

There was clue collected by amateur researchers from outside the US, such as the fact that bat breeding may be created at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Despite the efforts, there was no intermediate species in which there was the "jump of species" for humans. In addition, Wuhan's fish and seafood market was only the focus of less than half of the first cases.

However, it cannot be said of intentional escape or even that there is compelling evidence as to an escape, just speculation based on clues. FBI is trying to fool the Americans, as usual.

[Artoo]

We will never know the truth, sadly. The WHO conducted its own investigation and found no evidence of a leak, yet at the same time I’ve always thought China’s response to Covid - building multiple hospitals in less than a week - was suspiciously aggressive in those early days before it spread around the world.

The US have been promoting the leak storyline since before Covid became a global issue, which has always felt like politicisation, and with the US and China building up to direct war over Taiwan, blaming China for Covid will undoubtably gain US support for such a war.

I don’t personally believe in conspiracy theories so I believe it probably did jump from bats. This BBC article from 2021 reports that scientists ‘were confident that coronaviruses "with a high degree of genetic relatedness to Sars-CoV-2 are widely present in bats across many nations and regions in Asia".’ This at least seems logical to me, and if a research lab was not located in Wuhan, I don’t even know if we’d be having this conversation.

As I said, we’ll never really know, but the world has long known that a flu-like pandemic was coming, one way or another - it was reported on for years before Covid-19 happened. Many illnesses have passed from animals to humans, and and this wasn’t even the first flu outbreak to kill a significant amount of people. That doesn’t make it any easier to stomach (Covid has been devastating for so many) but I’m just glad that in the end, things weren’t as bad as they could have been.

The world has changed since Covid and we are still feeling the repercussions - I don’t think some people realise how much it’s changed yet. It’s natural to want to place blame, but sometimes there isn’t anyone to blame and I just hope no one is trying to start something they shouldn’t off the back of a global disaster.

[DnBLover]

There is actually compelling evidence that this is a lab leak, I've read that they were testing coronaviruses in the lab and the viral RNA seuqences they were testing were astonishingly close to that of covid-19. And it so happens that the lab was next to the Wuhan market. I need to spend time on it and do some more thorough reading but it's not a conspiracy theory anymore when the WHO's director has called for another investigation, together with the US government which has been investigating.

[zagan0401]

We observe that.

[Zeph]

I’m adding my voice to the choir that wants to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for the 7 million casualties. The Wuhan Virus should never have happened. I used to believe the bat theory too but not anymore.

[Thriller]

We will never know for sure, but one thing I do believe is we'll see at least another similar pandemic in our life time - the current probability is reported as 38%.

[DnBLover]

Yea we really can't know the absolute truth because of how political this whole situation is, and the US does seem keen on dragging China to the mud, especially after the whole baloon thing. But if the lab leak theory is properly explored, it can properly be ruled out.... Or not.

We'll see if this will ever go anywhere, but it is very hard to change the status quo.

[DnBLover]

This BBC video lays out some of the evidence.

[Artoo]

We will never know for sure, but one thing I do believe is we'll see at least another similar pandemic in our life time - the current probability is reported as 38%.

Well isn’t that happy news for a Monday

I hope there isn’t a second pandemic in our lifetime, but part of me really thinks that all things considered, we got off pretty lightly with covid (recovery vs mortality rate etc). That’s not to undermine the significant loss across the world, but things really could have been a lot worse.

Hopefully governments will now start taking threats of future potential pandemics seriously, because they sure as hell didn’t before. New illnesses could spring up at any time and we just weren’t prepared, which is inexcusable really.

I mean the UK’s initial response was herd immunity when the world was already locking down. We deserve better.

[DnBLover]

We will never know for sure, but one thing I do believe is we'll see at least another similar pandemic in our life time - the current probability is reported as 38%.

I'd love to know where this probability came from...

You do know the 86.45329% of probabilities are made up right? ;)

[jordi_89]

We will never know for sure, but one thing I do believe is we'll see at least another similar pandemic in our life time - the current probability is reported as 38%.

Wait, reported by whom?

I'm expecting a pandemic with some very resistant bacteria in the next 20 years. But I HOPE it doesn't happen because we'd be screwed.

[jordi_89]

And I forgot about the permafrost. I hope nothing extremely deadly comes out of there when it thaws.

[Thriller]

It was on google.

[jordi_89]

Well, I'm gonna start looking for a cabin in the woods that also happens to have a bunker below it. Just in case.