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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Intelligence community actively investigating Wuhan lab as possible COVID-19 origin |
| 2021-04-15 |
| [Washington Examiner] The intelligence community is investigating whether COVID-19 originated through an accidental escape from a Wuhan lab or through a natural emergence, spy agency leaders confirmed, as they warned more broadly about the Chinese Communist Party’s influence efforts inside the United States. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, asked Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines about COVID-19’s origins during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the worldwide threats assessment report, arguing, "We can't conclude definitively that the virus that causes COVID-19 emerged naturally until there’s been a transmission chain that’s been identified, how the virus evolved and transmitted between species, and to date, no such path of zoonotic transmission has been definitively identified." He asked if that was accurate, and the Biden spy chief confirmed the Wuhan lab was one of two main hypotheses. "It is absolutely accurate the intelligence community does not know exactly where, when, or how COVID-19 virus was transmitted initially," Haines testified. "And basically, components have coalesced around two alternative theories. These scenarios are, it emerged naturally from contact with infected animals, or it was a laboratory accident, as you identified. And that is where we are right now. But we're continuing to work on this issue and collect information and to the best we can essentially to give you greater confidence in what the scenario is." Officials from the Trump and Biden administrations said that the Chinese government worked to thwart an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, which has killed 2.96 million people worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has criticized China for a lack of transparency at the start of the pandemic and condemned China for spreading baseless conspiracy theories about COVID-19 originating with the U.S. military. Rubio, the vice chairman of the committee, said an accidental lab escape was "plausible" and pointed to some reasons why he thought so, including that "researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have demonstrated from their publication record that they were skilled at techniques in which they genetically modified bat coronaviruses," as well as that viruses such as SARS have escaped from Chinese labs in the past and that U.S. diplomats warned about subpar biosafety standards at the Wuhan lab in 2018. A Trump State Department fact sheet on the Wuhan Institute of Virology declassified in mid-January assessed that lab workers fell ill with COVID-19-like symptoms in 2019, scientists there studied viruses genetically similar to SARS-CoV-2, and the Wuhan lab conducted secret experiments with the Chinese military as well as gain-of-function research. The Biden administration has not weighed in publicly on that. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #9 And that's also why the United States of America is a former country. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2021-04-15 21:55 |
| #8 US Spies still do not know...... More research required, grants, increased funding, new personnel and the like. Final answers could be years or decades off. We'll possibly never know. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-04-15 12:00 |
| #6 And that my friend, is precisely why Donald Trump is a former president. Indeed. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2021-04-15 10:43 |
| #5 Just don't call it the CCP virus, the China virus or the Wuhan virus. |
| Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2021-04-15 07:44 |
| #4 After China has had roughly 14 months to "eliminate", clone ALL STAFF, Medical Personnel and sanitize or rewrite all R&D records. When China is done cleaning up it will look like a Medical R&D lab for developing a better disease resistant Rice strain. BTW: China hasn't even been honest about its Infected and Mortality numbers. A country of 1.4 Billion claiming only: Confirmed cases 90,457 Recovered 85,524 Deaths 4,636 (Source Worldmeter) |
| Posted by: NN2N1 2021-04-15 07:26 |
| #3 /\ The USA is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the CCP, doing business as China Inc. And that my friend, is precisely why Donald Trump is a former president. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-04-15 05:50 |
| #2 No, we can't. No sir. Because if that were true, then China would be a hostile power seeking to destroy us with buiweapons created in their Wuhan labs. And if that were true, then thousands of US companies, banks and investors would have to roll up their business operations in China. Which means that they would, together, lose several trillion dollars -- not that America would lose, but that our corrupt globalist China-blowing elite would lose: an average of several million dollars for each of our China whores, and billions for each of our Oligarchs. The USA is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the CCP, doing business as China Inc. |
| Posted by: Omomotch Sproing5501 2021-04-15 03:58 |
| #1 Historical revisionism is alive and well. We simply can't have people believing these SOB's maintain huge concentration camps and systematically murder millions of people with man-made pathogens. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-04-15 03:17 |