• iopq@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s an accidental leak. It’s happened before in the Soviet Union and people died, although it didn’t lead to an epidemic

    The conspiracy theory is “COVID was engineered to affect Jews and Chinese less prior to being released on purpose”

    These are different claims, and accidental leak is at least plausible and only blames the lab for improper safety precautions

      • jonne@infosec.pub
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        1 year ago

        The US was actually funding research in the Wuhan institute through the NIH. It makes sense, as the caves in that Chinese province are home to the bats that have corona viruses like the original SARS and possibly covid-19.

      • JasSmith@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        which implies it was engineered

        It was engineered. They have admitted that. Coronavirus was manipulated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology to become more infectious. The contention is around the term “gain of function.” Fauci changed the definition some years ago to skirt the funding bans imposed by Obama. His new definition requires intent to make a virus more communicable or virulent for humans. Since the WIV didn’t intend to make it more communicable or virulent for humans, Fauci maintains it is not “gain of function” research.

        I don’t see why this is so hard for some people to accept. Chinese laboratory standards are among the worst in the world. Article after article after article details their abysmal safety standards. Why on Earth should we believe that this specific lab were somehow better? Of course it wasn’t. Of course some unqualified technician made a mistake. This was always the concern about gain of function research, which was why Obama banned it.