the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, For over a year anyone who raised the possibility that the coronavirus originated from a leak out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology was accused of everything from racism to conspiracy theorizing.
Now the media face hard questions amid a growing acceptance that it is possible COVID-19 originated in a Chinese laboratory. The idea was disparaged as a conspiracy theory by multiple outlets last year almost surely because its loudest promoter was then-President Trump. Now, as uncertainty grows, there are burgeoning suspicions that the media overstepped their mark.
Even (Saint) Dr. Anthony Fauci says he is “not convinced” the virus developed naturally and “we should continue to investigate what went on in China.”
Donald G. McNeil Jr., the prize-winning former science reporter for the New York Times, says “the argument that [SARS-CoV-2] could have leaked out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology or a sister lab in Wuhan has become considerably stronger than it was a year ago.”
Eighteen notable scientists wrote an open letter to Science this month: “We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data.”
The Wall Street Journal reports there is growing circumstantial evidence that something was wrong at the Wuhan lab in late 2019:
“Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the COVID-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory.”
All of this is occurring on the eve of a major meeting of the World Health Organization, which is supposedly investigating Covid-19’s origins. Will the Biden White House, which has bitterly complained about China’s lack of transparency on COVID-19, press the case for a full, independent investigation of China’s role in the pandemic?
