Thursday, March 02, 2023


FBI director confirms COVID 'most likely' leaked from Wuhan lab and claims China is 'thwarting and obfuscating' U.S. investigations

It was always nonsense that the Wuhan lab could not be blamed. The first infections were just about outside its front door! Some coincidence! Its point of origin is not strict proof but it has to be the default conclusion in lieu of better evidence. And the fact that China did a big coverup of what happened in the lab is another indicator of where the virus originated.

The only reason why the role of the Wuhan lab was excluded was the Leftist elite's sympathy for Communist regimes. To this day they still speak well of Castro. And need I mention their constant apologies for the Soviet regime while it existed?



FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed the agency's conclusion that the COVID pandemic was probably the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China.

Commenting for the first time on Tuesday about the FBI's judgment, Wray reiterated his agency's initial findings from 2021, adding that the Chinese government has allegedly worked to undermine the damning results.

'The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,' Wray told Fox News. 'Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.'

Wray's comments come as the White House continues to struggle to come to a 'consensus' on how the virus originated despite a Energy Department probe coming to the same conclusion as the FBI.

The FBI first came to the conclusion in 2021, saying it had 'moderate confidence' that the pandemic that gripped the world was a result of an accidental leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Wray said the work was conducted by top experts in the FBI and US government who specialize in monitoring potential outbreaks.

'The FBI has folks, agents, professionals, analysts, virologists, microbiologists, etc, who focus, specifically, on the dangers of biological threats, which includes things like novel viruses like COVID, and the concerns that in the wrong hands some bad guys, some hostile nation state, a terrorist, a criminal, the threats that that could pose,' Wray said.

'So here, you’re talking about a leak at a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans, and that’s precisely what that capability was designed for.'

Despite the FBI's conclusion, Wray added that Beijing has continuously tried to undercut the US government's work.

'I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we're doing, the work that our US government and close foreign partners are doing, and that's unfortunate for everybody,' he told Fox.

One such case occured earlier this week when China's foreign ministry pushed back at the Energy Department's analysis that the outbreak likely originated with a leak from a Chinese research lab in Wuhan.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning accused unnamed parties of trying to smear or vilify China – even amid continued calls for China to provide full access to information from its Wuhan facility.

'Certain parties should stop rehashing the "lab leak" narrative, stop smearing China and stop politicizing origins-tracing,' she said during a press briefing Monday

She talked up Chinese cooperation with investigating agencies, although in 2021 China rejected a World Health Organization effort to hold a second phase of its investigation. The group has denied abandoning its inquiry amid China's obstacles.

On Sunday, the Energy Department, which maintains a group of national labs, joined the FBI in the possibility of a lab leak as the possible origin of the virus – although it reached the conclusion with 'low confidence' as numerous other agencies back a traditional spread originating in the environment.

The Energy Department's report revealed it reversed its previous position and has used new research to conclude that the COVID-19 virus most likely leaked from a Chinese research lab.

The new conclusion was issued in an update to a 2021 document prepared by the director of National Intelligence and was recently provided to White House lawmakers, the Wall Street Journal reported.

While the Energy Department joined the FBI in saying the virus likely spread from a lab in Wuhan, four other agencies are still said to favor the 'natural spillover' theory that the virus escaped via an animal at a nearby meat market.

Two agencies, one of which is the CIA, are yet to declare a definitive position.

The Energy Department's change of tune is important because the agency is known for its expertise as it oversees various US laboratories, some of which carry out biological research.

With the mixed conclusions coming from US agencies, the White House on Monday was forced to admit the lack of a consensus.

'There is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how it started. There's just not an intelligence community consensus,' said national security spokesman Adm. John Kirby.

Kirby got hit with a series of questions about the report, which pointed to the lab leak as a likely source – even as other agencies attributed the pandemic to a virus that mutated in the environment.

Kirby pointed to that lack of agreement, even as the White House defended infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci's blasts against conspiracy theories and refused to say how the US might act against China if the theory that its labs were responsible holds up.

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The Greatest Cover-Up in Human History

First, it was supposedly a conspiracy theory. Then, it was banned. Finally, it was true.

The so-called "lab leak" theory of the origins of COVID-19 -- the theory that COVID-19 originated in at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and then was unintentionally loosed -- was always the most probable explanation for the outbreak of the deadly virus. After all, as Jon Stewart correctly joked in 2021, "'Oh, my God, there's a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China. What do we do?' 'Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab.' The disease is the same name as the lab. That's just a little too weird, don't you think?"

But for well over a year, it was considered verboten to mention the lab leak theory. When Senator Tom Cotton, R-Ark., posited the possibility of a lab leak in February 2020, he was roundly mocked by the media. The New York Times headlined, "Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins." Scientific American headlined -- in March 2022! -- "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis Made It Harder for Scientists to Seek the Truth." Facebook actively quashed attempts to disseminate the theory; Dr. Anthony Fauci went on national television and downplayed the theory.

Two reasons are obvious. The first: powerful institutions had a stake in downplaying the Chinese origins of the virus in order to shift blame to the rest of the world. Certainly, that was China's game: In all likelihood, COVID-19 was spreading in China as early as October 2019, and the government covered it up for months. But that was also the game of the World Health Organization. Members of the American government like Fauci also had a stake in smothering questions about American funding for gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

Then there's the second reason: all the wrong people were repeating the lab leak theory. As one of MSNBC's resident hacks, Mehdi Hasan, admitted on Twitter, "The simple reason why so many people weren't keen to discuss the 'lab leak' theory is because it was originally conflated by the right with 'Chinese bio weapon' conspiracies and continues to be conflated by the right with anti-Fauci conspiracies. Blame the conspiracy theorists." As Nate Silver correctly noted, "The Bad People thought the lab leak might be true, therefore as journalists we couldn't be expected to actually evaluate the evidence for it."

Herein lies a lesson: A huge number of people have decided that there are a cadre of people who are so vile that any opinion they touch is immediately toxified beyond investigation. Claims are not to be evaluated on their own merits; instead, we can simply determine whether a claim ought to be supported based on those who posit it. This helps to explain why political crossover has become nearly impossible: We're not judging the claims of our opponents; we're judging (SET ITAL) each (END ITAL) other. And this means that we can discard any argument simply by dint of the fact that we don't like the person offering it.

Among members of the general population, this is a problem, but not a fundamental one. But among those who pose as "experts" -- the people who are supposed to serve as guides for people who outsource their political information, from media to scientific institutions -- it's a fatal error. After all, experts are supposed to be impartial adjudicators of the evidence. That's their entire job. We can evaluate on our own who we don't like -- but we often need help to determine whether an argument has merit or not. When experts become "just like us," they undermine their raison d'etre.
And that's precisely what happened with COVID-19. Whether it was ignoring the actual evidence regarding masks and mask mandates, the evidence regarding post-vaccination transmissibility or the evidence regarding the lab leak theory, experts decided that the wrong people had to be ignored. But they were wrong. And now they have no credibility left.

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Australian Premier has called for an end of Covid-19 vaccines mandates, saying the jab has no impact on transmission

The NSW Premier has dropped a bombshell on talkback radio telling listeners there is “no evidence” Covid vaccines stop transmission.

Dominic Perrottet, a month out from what polls are indicating could be a lineball state election, was fielding talkback calls on 2GB with Ben Fordham when he made the claim.

John a paramedic, told the Premier that both he and his wife, an emergency nurse, lost their jobs due to the vaccine mandates.

Both are still unemployed.

“We are down in Sydney at the industrial relations committee trying to get her job back,” John said.

Doesn’t it seem disingenuous you are offering $10,000 sign-on bonuses to nurses to get them back into the industry, and me and my wife can’t work, my job still hasn’t been replaced as a paramedic. It’s an absolute disgrace.”

The Premier told John he has repeatedly told the public and private sector to end vaccine mandates.

“I have made it very clear, and I couldn’t be clearer to the public service here in NSW to end vaccine mandates and the majority of the public service have done so,” a frustrated Premier said “I have also made it clear to the private sector.

“I have made it clear for the simple reason that there is no evidence that the vaccines stop transmission.”

Fordham said that employers – in both the private and public sector – were not listening, lamenting it was “crazy” the mandates were persisting despite the shortage of paramedics and nurses.

Mr Perrottet then reiterated there was “no evidence” the vaccine stops transmission. “It is based on the evidence, there is no evidence that in this current environment that vaccines stop transmission,” he said.

Mr Perrottet said health facilities imposed some vaccine requirements on workers before the pandemic, usually for influenza, and that was the point he wanted to get back to.
“In the areas of the public service that I can make that direction, I have it and it has been enacted,” he said.

The NSW Premier was known as the most liberal out of the state and territory leaders on masks and vaccine mandates during the pandemic.

In December 2021, during the Omicron wave, he backflipped on his “personal responsibility” approach to mask-wearing by reintroducing a mandate requiring them to be worn indoors while also reinstating social distancing measures in hospitality venues.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) has recommended that everyone over the age of 18 who has not been infected with Covid or received a vaccine within the last six months should get a fifth shot.
The fifth jab was previously only available for people who are severely immunocompromised.

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH) Also here

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH) Also here

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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