This week, the NY Times is priding itself on an "open-minded" look at the origins of COVID.
I'm not sure what else they thought they should have been doing back in 2020, but here's some of their statements of the obvious in an attempt to lead from behind... way behind:
Julian E. Barnes | In the early days of the pandemic, I was speaking to a variety of U.S. intelligence officials who believed that China was hiding the truth of what happened with Covid. They were right: China was.
In the name of safety, Chinese officials ordered that coronavirus samples be destroyed. At best, this hampered the later investigation into Covid’s origins, and at worst it was a sign of a cover-up.
In this context, some of those intelligence officials believed that people were not paying enough attention to the lab-leak theory. They spoke about a history of accidents and safety problems in Chinese labs. Some, including the lab in Wuhan, also had a history of “gain of function” research, which tries to create dangerous viruses so scientists can learn how to combat them before they emerge in the wild.
The problem is that viruses can leak from labs with destructive effects. The 2001 anthrax attacks leaked (purposely) from Fort Detrick, one of the most secure labs in America, and a deadly 1977 flu outbreak likely came from a Soviet lab. (Josh Clark’s “The End of the World” podcast did an episode on near-miss lab leaks.)
These patterns probably helped explain the conclusion that F.B.I. intelligence officials made, with medium confidence, that a lab leak was the most plausible origin of Covid. The Department of Energy also considers the lab-leak theory to be the more likely explanation, at least in part because of the safety protocols in the Chinese labs.
At the end of the Trump administration, the State Department released a piece of intelligence that seemed to bolster the lab-leak hypothesis: In late 2019, a few researchers at the Wuhan lab, known as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, became ill with flulike symptoms.
*Yawn* Golf clap for Julian.
Remnant readers aren't learning anything new, especially since The Remnant was the first to publish the real story as told by a whistleblower employee of the Wuhan lab itself.
But at least, if even the NY Times is admitting it, we can bask in a little "told ya so" and a lot of "never forget!" And maybe a few of the fully-vaccinated consumers of the NY Times will be roused enough out of their CBD-induced stupor to connect some dots. Or not.
Latest from RTV — VATICAN II, 60 YEARS LATER: Can You Handle the Truth? (includes never-before-seen vintage video)
