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tolbish
> The conspiracy, of course, is that China, and specifically the Wuhan Institute of Virology, genetically engineered this novel strain of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, to specifically wreak havoc on human populations.

I thought the conspiracy was that the lab is where the virus research was being done and it somehow got out, not that it was specifically created there with human infection in mind.

dboreham
Which makes me suspicious of the whole article which in turn makes me wonder if the theory is correct.
MikeUt
It's easiest to debunk the theory making the most extreme claims, then pretend that's the only version of the theory.
null0pointer
Suggesting it was a lab leak is not the same as saying it was genetically engineered. I can’t tell anymore if the people conflating the two are either stupid or malicious.
throwawaygal7
I think most people claiming a lab leak believe that the virus was ultimately of natural origin, and was 'engineered' only in the sense of being tested in a lab and leaking from said experiments. Some also hold that it could be a recombinant strain produced in the lab, still with ultimately natural origins...
[dead] ikerdanzel
They did have precedence with the earlier sars virus. And that lab did research on sars virus. And the first outbreak happened in that city. And the group of patient zeroes, a lot of them didn't had any connection to that wet market. There were satellite image analysis of hospitals there have unusual surge activities as early as Aug 2019. And then officially, virus can't be named with that city name, researchers who identified HIV parts on covid suppressed, and only the wet market was the official ground zero for the spread late in year end. That is a lot of coincidence. A court can convict just purely based on circumstantial evidences. So not surprising people came to that conclusion. The main gripe is virus originate from the lab. Whether it is of natural occurance that isn't the main focus.
innovator116
The author of this article is astrophysicist not biologist or virologist. It appears to be propaganda for Chinese CCP!
colinb
and here was I thinking it was the Poughkeepsie branch. Thanks for the tip.
briefcomment
There’s barely any investigative reporting here. Reads more like an opinion piece.
sschueller
A lab leak doesn't require much other than carelessness and ignoring protocols. Engineering a virus that would become a world pandemic is practically impossible at this point and no one is really claiming that that happened.

One is far fetched the other is not.

johnaspden
So, it's certainly not a bioweapon. We know that because it is so crap.

I don't see how that means it can't have leaked from a lab. Can anyone enlighten me?

davidivadavid
At this point can we consider that whenever "Science" is used as a reified subject ("science shows"), the conclusion is almost guaranteed to be bullshit/wrong/politicized, etc.?
jacknews
The content does not support the headline.