New documents reveal early beliefs that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered
technofog.substack.com
technofog.substack.com
They then quickly organized a meeting to get everyone on the same page that it was not a lab leak and spent a year telling the public anyone suggesting it might have been a lab leak - based on the very same points they themselves had instantly noticed - was a crazy conspiracy theorist and worse.
Then when responding to FOIA requests they redacted the parts of their emails proving what shameless liars they've been.
We are only reading these now because congressional staffers were allowed an in camera review and "to the best of their ability, hand transcribed the contents of the emails". These actually aren't unredacted documents but hand transcriptions.
How is this such an inconsequential story that it's basically only being covered by an anonymous analyst on Substack?
What a crisis of leadership.
It worked, the public still believes it: The submission was already flagged.
1. It was statistically extremely likely a virus like COVID would come along soon, and models have predicted such viruses arising naturally for a long time.
2. It is at the same time perfectly possible it was engineered.
3. It is a plain stupid move, politically, to outwardly entertain the idea that COVID was engineered - unless you've got proof so damning not even China could ignore it. Unlikely to exist. And even then it is only going to score you a few feel-good points with the plebeians at home.
4. Either possibility has no impact at all on shorter term decision making. It is stupid to burden people whose immediate goal it is to save lives with even more political minefields they have to navigate.
Individuals, countries, have goals they are trying to actualize. Accusations are made if the accuser believes it will serve them.
Throwing unprovable accusations at China helps with nothing western countries are trying to accomplish. The most you can get out of it is some points during an election - it is helpful in painting a bogeyman draped in Chinese colors.
Even if the goal was to reach an international treaty banning such research, it would make no sense to alienate China this way. It would put China in a position where they could not sign such a treaty without appearing weak during a time in which they are putting a lot of effort in appearing strong.
In this case an investigation has happened and the evidence all points in the same direction. Putting China to one side, the actionable outcome of this should be shutting down NIAID and canning or prosecuting Fauci.
"Both are possible, so it's impossible to know. And even if we suspected, there's no good reason to try. And even if we tried it's just going to burden people. And even if we knew it has no impact on our 'decision making'"
How about, figuring out the truth is the right thing to do?
My comment is an explanation of the behavior of leaders and specifically addressing the article.
It is very much not an opinion of what should be done where it doesn't concern international cooperation in a time of crisis.
I'm very much for figuring out why a crisis occurred, because it might save lives down the line. That doesn't mean that it makes sense to burn bridges that are saving lives right now - especially if you can have both.
Even if there was undeniable proof that the virus escaped a Chinese lab, the smart course of action for Fauci, his peers in other countries, the WHO, and pretty much anyone working with the Chinese would be to ignore it for now. Anything else would be endangering international cooperation and lives with it. For what?
The fact it was a leak or not doesn't change the fact the virus is out. Thats the bottom line.
There is no recourse, no fallout, no repercussions to going after china without solid evidence. "Shrug and deny" is all you will acheive.
There are photos and evidence of china trying to wipe Uighur culture via violence, slave labour and 're-education' camps at nazi scale.
Worldwide reaction - oh its terrible you should stop, please - nothing changes.
Besides, how are you going to go about proving it was leaked/engineered? The officials probably already disappeared all witnesses/evidence anyway.
The reality is we will never know for sure.
Its very suspicious, that the virus started pretty much next to the lab. I myself 70% on side it was actually a leak (wouldn't be surprised a tested animal was smuggled out to be sold for meat - sounds very chinese thing to do). But it doesnt matter, virus is out and thats my main problem.
Yes, been seeing these predictions for a long time.
>It is at the same time perfectly possible it was engineered.
Occams razor clearly indicates it was engineered at this point. We have had years to prove it was zoonotic, it's not.
>It is a plain stupid move, politically, to outwardly entertain the idea that COVID was engineered - unless you've got proof so damning not even China could ignore it. Unlikely to exist. And even then it is only going to score you a few feel-good points with the plebeians at home.
Not sure I agree with this point. There's a wide gap at this point between 'engineered to release and attack the world' and 'lab leak because they were incompetent.' Which is exactly what was already established. Many sources clearly indicated they werent following basic safety procedures at that lab.
>Either possibility has no impact at all on shorter term decision making. It is stupid to burden people whose immediate goal it is to save lives with even more political minefields they have to navigate.
On the contrary. They cannot do their job effectively without doing exactly this. If we ignored reality like we did, they now will react inappropriately. Which is what happened.
You and I have very different ideas of what constitutes a proof. Failure to prove A does not imply ¬A and how/if Occam's razor should be applied here is an open debate.
> > It is a plain stupid move, politically, to outwardly entertain the idea that COVID was engineered - unless you've got proof so damning not even China could ignore it. Unlikely to exist. And even then it is only going to score you a few feel-good points with the plebeians at home.
> Not sure I agree with this point. There's a wide gap at this point between 'engineered to release and attack the world' and 'lab leak because they were incompetent.' Which is exactly what was already established. Many sources clearly indicated they werent following basic safety procedures at that lab.
This is not addressing the paragraph you quoted at all. Was this supposed to address something else?
> On the contrary. They cannot do their job effectively without doing exactly this. If we ignored reality like we did, they now will react inappropriately. Which is what happened.
This sounds to me like you believe "people saving lives" is referring to Fauci and colleagues. It's referring to the tens of thousands of researchers and doctors sharing data on treatment, studies, and tracking the evolution of the virus and its variants around the globe. Fauci's job is to enable them to do their work, not make it harder. There is a very real threat that if accusations were levied against China on the political stage, cooperation would cease or become more complicated. Remember that China comprises about one fifth of the world's population.
Is it really a mistake to forego an opportunity to gloat and score some cheap political points at home, swallow some pride, contain the urge to point fingers, whatever it is, to save lives? And that's not even considering other ramifications. Just because you believe someone fucked up does not mean it serves to immediately rub their face in it.
https://virological.org/t/tackling-rumors-of-a-suspicious-or...
Imagine you are the US president:
If you believe it was engineered and escaped due to human error, then making a scene risks China cutting off supplies of PPE and essential biotech, of which they are by far the world's largest supplier, leading to much higher mortality in the US.
If you believe it was engineered and was spread deliberately (use of a biological WMD!), then making a scene also risks escalating to a war with China, a nuclear-armed power with a highly dangerous military.
Personally I still think it's too early to be re-examining these questions. The west still relies heavily on Chinese manufacturing to fight COVID. Maybe in 2024?
It would be nice to have a somewhat more definite answer to the question, but I’m doubtful we’ll ever know.
Mullis believed everyone who said HIV caused AIDS was lying or incompetent. His opinions about it are worth less than nothing.
We deserve answers, then action.
Like my kid's kindergarten teacher always says, you get what you get and you don't fuss a bit.
Or from that song "Don't worry be happy":
"In every life we have some trouble, but when you worry you make it double."
A lab alone cannot engineer a virus any more than a human attempt to create one which given our current lack of knowledge cannot happen either.
However, mutations of a current bat virus kept in a lab can and will trigger an out break of something.
Everyone see the very subtle difference yet?
It's that misunderstanding of the difference they wanted to shut down i.e. misunderstandings...not investigations or science.
And despite differences in political systems this was the concern of China scientists and politicians as well.
The irony.
[1]: See the note in the beginning of Appendix I: https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2...
[2]: LA Times: A Nobel laureate backs off from claiming a ‘smoking gun’ for the COVID-19 lab-leak theory https://archive.fo/F440c
It seems like some of the text might be missing.
For instance on page 14 the greyed out FOIA is pretty long but they only write "…[Eddie Holmes] arguing against engineering but repeated passage is still an option…"
Is that the actual word for word text of the redacted email or is that just the congressional staffer's summary of a longer paragraph that refutes the point they are trying to make?
Also kind of odd that some LA was allowed to not only bring paper to transcribe but also they release it. I guess it probably isn't classified in that case, but then begs the question why it didn't pass FOIA
I think your suspicion is correct, there are omissions in the "unredacted" version too. They kinda do allude to this by saying "excerpts of those transcriptions are reproduced below", which I had not noticed. Probably all the dot dot dots denote omission.
The omissions might be malicious, or merely because of privacy reasons. But either way, I think there isn't much new substantive content in what they have released.
> I guess it probably isn't classified in that case, but then begs the question why it didn't pass FOIA
The exemptions to FOIA are a bit broader than that, and the exemptions are often abused. The redacted version has a "code" after each redaction which is supposedly the reason for it. You can find the meaning of the codes here [1]. I think the all the ones in the released PDF have one of these two codes:
(b)(5) Inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters that would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.
(b)(6) Personnel and medical files and similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
[1]: https://www.fbi.gov/services/information-management/foipa/fo...
Yeah from reading the emails and what transcriptions are there I didn't see any 'smoking guns' either.
I guess it is interesting to know more context that some of the smartest decision makers didn't initially think it was some crackpot idea to suggest a possible, but unknown, lab leak. I think they did express valid concerns about focusing on that, when as they say there were way bigger things to tackle which might explain a little bit of the messaging in the first year.