FBI boss says COVID-19 'most likely' escaped from lab
- Reference: 1677695228
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/03/01/fbi_covid19_lab/
- Source link:
Without China's complete cooperation – easier said than done – the virus's true origin will remain impossible to lock down, but qualified (and less qualified) theories have proliferated since the outbreak at the end of 2019.
On Sunday [1]The Wall Street Journal revealed that the Energy Department had shared a classified intel report with the White House and key Congress members concluding that COVID-19 "likely arose from a laboratory leak."
[2]
It's been a popular theory among armchair commentators since the beginning. The outbreak started in Wuhan, China. There's a Wuhan Institute of Virology. QED. An argument against that conspiracy theory can be found, as one example, [3]here in the peer-reviewed journal of America's National Academy of Sciences.
[4]
[5]
At this point you might be wondering what interest the US Dept of Energy has in such matters, but the agency's remit is wider than its name suggests. As well as overseeing Uncle Sam's nuclear weapons program, some of its national labs also undertake advanced biological research similar to that performed in Wuhan.
But the conclusion is far from conclusive, as it were. Although apparently the result of fresh intelligence, the department's judgment had been made with "low confidence," sources say, and some US agencies lean toward a "natural transmission" explanation while others remain undecided for a lack of solid evidence.
[6]
However, the FBI has believed that the virus leaked from a lab since 2021, a view it holds with "moderate confidence." Speaking to [7]Fox News yesterday, director Chris Wray doubled down when asked about the Energy Department report:
The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan. Let me step back for a second. The FBI has folks, agents, professionals, analysts, virologists, microbiologists etc. who focus specifically on the dangers of biological threats, which include things like novel viruses like COVID, and the concerns that in the wrong hands – some bad guys, a hostile nation state, a terrorist, a criminal – the threats that those could pose.
Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans and that's precisely what that capability was designed for. I should add that our work related to this continues, and there aren't a whole lot of details that I can share that aren't classified.
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.
[8]Petaflops help scientists understand why some COVID-19 variants are more contagious
[9]Singapore pulls plug on COVID tracking program
[10]No, AI can't tell if you've got COVID-19 by listening to your coughs
[11]Tech supply chains brace for impact as China shifts from zero-COVID to rampant COVID
It's incendiary stuff at a time when US relations with China are at a 40-year low. The Middle Kingdom responded predictably, accusing Washington of "political manipulation." Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said: "The conclusions they have reached have no credibility to speak of."
The most widely accepted theory is one of natural transmission, and Professor David Robertson, head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at University of Glasgow, told [12]the BBC that the "bat soup" school of thought was still more likely than a lab incident.
"There's been an accumulation of evidence (what we know about the viruses biology, the close variants circulating in bats and locations of early human cases) that firmly points to a natural origin centered on the Huanan market in Wuhan city," he said.
No matter the origin, COVID-19 has killed almost 7 million people worldwide, left supply chains in tatters, ruined economies, and brought globalization to its knees. China, like many other nations, has also endured multiple lockdowns to try to minimize the spread.
[13]
As China and the US square up over the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the Terrible Twenties look set to become the worst decade in recent memory. Comments like this from the FBI et al do little to ease tensions. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y--ZF-jLhHHqcLA8PeMQbgAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2214427119#sec-1
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y--ZF-jLhHHqcLA8PeMQbgAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y--ZF-jLhHHqcLA8PeMQbgAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y--ZF-jLhHHqcLA8PeMQbgAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-director-says-covid-pandemic-most-likely-originated-chinese-lab
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/23/petaflops_covid/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/09/singapore_pulls_plug_on_covid/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/05/ai_covid_cough/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/19/china_supply_chain_living_with_covid/
[12] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64806903
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y--ZF-jLhHHqcLA8PeMQbgAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: The dangers of certainty
Sceptical? Bloody conspiracy theorist.
Next you'll be saying that masks don't work, the lockdowns were not much use and the vaccines are a bit shit. What else, school children had to wear masks in England because it would look bad if Scotland had already done it, even though they knew it wouldn't do much good? Get out of here.
All things that would have got you kicked off social media platforms last year. So, I won't be saying any of that.
Re: The dangers of certainty
It depends on the masks too, of course. The non N95 masks being sold at every corner shop were of marginal use, but they helped the economy by causing people to buy them.
Re: The dangers of certainty
It depends on the masks too, of course. The non N95 masks being sold at every corner shop were of marginal use, but they helped the economy by causing people to buy them.
...and caused untold damage to the environment.
BTW, regarding N95 masks, even after making them mandatory Austria saw no change to the trajectory of its COVID waves.
Re: The dangers of certainty
'BTW, regarding N95 masks, even after making them mandatory Austria saw no change to the trajectory of its COVID waves."
[citation needed]
Re: The dangers of certainty
Its as if we unlearnt decades of 'Keep Britain Tidy' overnight. Those f-ing blue 'masks' are EVERYWHERE.
Re: The dangers of certainty
I did, though. Had no problem at all.
The FBI is way out on a limb here
University of California virologists id studies that strongly point to the Wuhan animal market as the source, as described in this recent NPR story:
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/28/1160162845/what-does-the-science-say-about-the-origin-of-the-sars-cov-2-pandemic
If I have to choose whether to believe the "low confidence" and "moderate confidence" of the FBI and the spook agencies, or the information obtained and analyzed by *actual virologists* and evolutionary biologists who say their conclusions are a near certainty, I'm going to go with the biologists. Who, incidentally, don't have a national-policy axe to grind. They just want to prevent the next pandemic.
Re: The FBI is way out on a limb here
Agreed. The FBI is a domestic intelligence organisation so I think it is fair to ask why they are even expressing an opinion here.
Re: The FBI is way out on a limb here
I was also wondering why the US Department of Energy was expressing a view, and stumbled across this:
At this point you might be wondering what interest the Energy Department has in such matters, but the agency's remit is wider than its name suggests. As well as overseeing Uncle Sam's nuclear weapons program, some of its national labs also undertake advanced biological research similar to that performed in Wuhan.
which just raises a whole lot more questions.
The article finishes with:
It's incendiary stuff at a time when US relations with China are at a 40-year low.
To which I also ask, "why is that?"
Maybe they're expressing an opinion BECAUSE they are an intelligence organization
If they have in their possession some internal Chinese government documents/communication that indicates a coverup related to the lab that might lead them to believe there is something to that theory. Of course it is possible that even China doesn't know the origin for sure, and is just acting to cover up anything related to possible lab leaks in case that's the cause so it wouldn't allow the FBI to assess that with full confidence.
Aside from that, I agree I'll believe the scientists over the government agency, especially since lately it seems like the US is looking for every excuse they can get to say bad stuff about China.
Re: The FBI is way out on a limb here
NPR? Fucking clowns.
Re: The FBI is way out on a limb here
And I suppose you think the now admitted under oath to be deliberately lying to their audience talking heads at Fox News are a more reputable source?
Re: The FBI is way out on a limb here
Bit of a deflection there. NPR used to be really great but they have seriously lost their way these last few years.
It's no good saying NPR are ok, because Fox News are worse? It's possible that they are both bad, and it doesn't really matter which one is worse does it?
That's a bit like trying to make me eat broccoli, because you don't like Brussels sprouts.
Re: The FBI is way out on a limb here
The problem with the wet market theory is that no host species was ever found, unlike in the SARS1 outbreak of 2002. Sequencing and tracing has improved enormously over the last couple of decades yet the culprit animal has eluded us.
Re: The FBI is way out on a limb here
Is this the same FBI that used the stats on DNA "fingerprints" to prove it was reliable.
AFTER cleaning duplicates from the database.
The people who know the truth aren't going to talk, those that don't, will. We should move on from attempting to get a definitive answer and work on being better prepared fro the next pandemic.
Okay, okay, we get it...
...America good, China bad. Or something.
But given these days they're blaming China for everything they can't blame on Russia, excuse me if I'll take this theory with a massive truckload of salt.
Re: Okay, okay, we get it...
Pretty simplistic analysis of the situation. What are “they” “blaming” russia for? Invading and murdering the citizens of a sovereign neighbour? “We” have already observed that is so.
Re: Okay, okay, we get it...
Was thinking more of the hacking, the meddling with democratic processes, etc.
Not the bloody obvious, because that's, you know, bloody obvious.
We have seen this before, so many times.
Wray, while no great over of Trump was appointed to the FBI in the wake of the James Comey firestorm. He is still a partisan Republican, and an ally to the modern conservative movement.
Big surprise then that when Rupert Murdoch is eyeballs deep in his own troubles that Wray is happy to show up on the WSJ and recycle his previous statements on the lab leak theory that only his department seems to find enough support for to claim more than low confidence. He provided no new evidence of course, just the same arm waving we have seen from him.
Maybe people outside the conservative world are having a harder time connecting the dots, but this is just another smokescreen to deflect attention from the implosion of the toxic and parasitic relationship the modern conservatives in government, the groups like the Federalist and John Birch Society, and the conservative news media. Like so many other cases of conservative making inflammatory claims, He offered no new evidence to support his offices claims, and no other part of government, the private sector, or academia have come to the same conclusion.
Based on the evidence, a lab leak is possible, but that just means it joins all of the other plausible scenarios. There is no evidentiary reason to think that either the Wuhan Virology Lab or wet market was the sole start of this outbreak, though it certainly passed through both of them during the pandemic. It is likely the primary source could have been either an animal in another area that infected a person that then carried the infection to Wuhan, or an infected animal brought to the city. Due to the time passed, interference with outside and inside investigators by the Chinese government, and the wake of the pandemic, we are unlikely to find definitive answers for anything farther back. But we would expect researchers at the Wuhan Virology lab to be at the center of the response as the outbreak unfolded to to their expertise, and the animal market was a hub for trafficking wildlife, so those paths cross over so often that without unlikely definitive evidence declaring one or the other as the source is literally guesswork.
Wray of course said none of THAT. He provided no solid basis for his agencies position rooted in actual evidence. And he talked up the fox news position without fully committing to it:
"Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans"
"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"
Which of course they are because they don't want to risk the rest of the world blaming them, and it's not like we haven't done it before. Where were Rumsfelds' WMDs again? And their own people would tear them apart. So even if they didn't intentionally or accidentaly cause this they are going to clamp down on it. And that lab isn't even fully Chinese controlled, as there was and is an international team of researchers there specializing in bat coronavirus research. Probably a good thing too as their research helped provide the fast roadmap to a working vaccine.
Instead presented it as a free hit t-up for Murdoch's spin-doctor team to knock it over the fence and score points with the conspiracy theorists.
And the "it's classified" crap is also deflated, as the other TLAs that deal with overseas classified data have all weighed in with the same assessment. If the FBI had classified information that a credible threat of a potential biological weapon incident and didn't share it with the agencies whose primary remit is foreign classified intelligence he needs to be immediately fired. If they did properly share whatever evidence they have, and the other agencies shot down, why is he doing a press tour for Rupert Murdoc's media empire? Wray is acting like a stooge. Sounds like we should start looking for a new FBI head either way.
That's setting aside the fact that hiding credible evidence of culpability of the Chinese government in a global pandemic killing millions worldwide would be one of the cruelest and most cynical coverups in history.
A couple of things
The US Department of Energy overseas American energy policy. In what way is it all qualified to issue findings on viruses?
The FBI... well. 20 years ago some people were kidnapped and held since without charge in Guantanamo. This is a crime against humanity. There is no evidence these people were ever terrorists, but the USA with the help of the FBI deemed them so. Slowly but surely these kidnap victims are being released. Yes, the FBI says the weather is good. Take an umbrella with you.
We saw how good American "intelligence" was in Afghanistan. They thought longer term that the Afghan government would hold out for months at least, and probably for several years. They held out a few hours. They said that a family they mercilessly bombed on the last day were all terrorists, and they stuck with that label until it was proven otherwise.
America is usually wrong about things, and only when it is shown otherwise does it then grudgingly say "well shucks".
Quoting from a graph in a book, an explanation about the probability of things
The book is called "Critical Thinking for Strategic Intelligence", 2nd edition, page 213. The subject is 'measuring perceptions of uncertainty'.
It is very instructive to me to see how varied on a scale from 0 to 100 certain words mean to certain/different people. This study asked NATO officers to put on a scale from 0 to 100 words and terms like "almost certainly", "highly likely", "we believe", and about ten more words like that.
[unable to quote, so paraphasing]
It's a graph so I can't quote it. But here goes. The words "probable", "probably", "likely" appeared on the scale from 0-100 from about 26 and higher. Meaning, from the context, that a number people who thought there was a 1 in 4 possibility of something being so, to them this meant it was probable. The words "we believe" appear from about 19 on the scale.
[end paraphrase]
So the next time you read or hear some of these people saying "something is probable", consider they may be amongst the group that is giving it a 1 in 4 chance of being correct.
There's an alternative perspective here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2214427119
Credible or not, the motivation is suspect
The problem I have with this is the source. If it was not the US I would be able to maybe give it more credence, but they have embarked on a veritable campaign to affect China which makes any such announcement far less credible without actual hard evidence - at that just isn't available.
If this had come from a more credible source, fine, but at the moment the US is in a competition battle with China so to me this 'conclusion' stinks.
The next question is, of course, if it now matters. Will it make a difference knowing this? I honestly don't know.
I asked our new guru
ChatGPT says the FBI "is not a scientific or medical institution with expertise in infectious diseases".
Unlike some of the other c0bblers it comes out with from time to time, this pronouncement seems reasonable. Even if you put aside it's dodginess, it is supposed to be a fighter of crime within the USA.
"might be wondering what interest the US Dept of Energy"
It's all about Power!
Windscale
If China does a "Windscale" on Wuhan, then, there's no smoke without fire as they say
Windscale [Sellafield]
Wuhan [???]
The dangers of certainty
I recall a lot of people being censored for 'misinformation' over this theory. It doesn't make them automatically right, or those censoring them automatically wrong but should serve as a warning to remain sceptical (distinct from being gullible).