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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Why do politicians keep breathing life into the false conspiracy theory that the coronavirus is a bioweapon? |
| 2020-03-16 |
| Because it's more than likely TRUE? [Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists] You’ve probably heard the rumor: The new coronavirus is a bioweapon. Some malicious country‐perhaps the United States, maybe China, depending on who’s talking or tweeting‐purposefully unleashed the virus that causes Covid-19 on the world. You might have also heard that the idea was widely dismissed by disease and defense experts. A good bioweapon, some note, wouldn’t spread as easily and indiscriminately as the new coronavirus does. But for political opportunists and conspiracy theorists, the rising number of Covid-19 infections, the growing ranks of the dead, and the mass disruptions to the daily rhythms of life have created fertile conspiratorial ground. The Covid-19 bioweapon conspiracy theory has not only failed to be debunked; it even seems to be getting a second wind, and prominent politicians from countries around the world are embracing it. "For a while, it seemed the pushback on the bioweapons narrative from the Washington Post and Foreign Policy was effective," biodefense researcher Filippa Lentzos said. "But in recent days, the narrative seems to be coming back with a vengeance." Current and former government officials, including former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao, and US Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas have given credence to some version of the theory in the last month. In the United States, Cotton isn’t fully letting up on his suggestion last month that the virus was a Chinese military creation. In a Fox News interview in February, he appeared to suggest just that, before walking back the idea, sort of. (In a series of tweets, he said the bioweapon theory was just one of several hypotheses.) Bioweapon or not, Cotton still believes someone is responsible for the pandemic, someone Chinese. In a statement Thursday announcing that he’d be temporarily closing his Senate office, he called the virus the "Wuhan coronavirus" five times, vowing, "We will hold accountable those who inflicted it on the world." In a later clarifying tweet, he said that, yes, he meant China. A March 12 article in Britain’s Express tabloid added fuel to fire, reporting that University of Illinois law professor Francis Boyle, who helped draft the legislation that implemented the Biological Weapons Convention in the United States, had identified a "smoking gun" that showed the coronavirus was a bioweapon leaked from a Chinese research lab near Wuhan, the city where the outbreak originated. Boyle reportedly based his theory on a paper on ScienceDirect that noted a "gain-of-function" in the virus that makes it better than other coronaviruses at spreading among humans. But as the Express itself notes in a correction, the research paper Boyle cited does not speculate on what caused the gain-of-function in the virus. "It was therefore incorrect when our article claimed ’the paper suggested Covid-19 has been tampered with,’" the correction notes. That didn’t stop Manish Tewari, a prominent Indian parliamentarian and spokesperson for the Indian National Congress, the country’s leading opposition party, from re-tweeting the Express article to his more than 380,000 followers, adding his own highly charged twist: the disease outbreak is a terrorist act. "CoronaVirus is a bioweapon that went [rogue] or that was made to go [rogue]. It is an act of terror," Tewari tweeted on March 12. "International investigation conducted either under auspices of ICJ or ICC is necessary to unearth the truth & bring focus back on eradicating Biological Weapons." |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #23 Sarah Palin was soooo stoopid talking about Death Panels™ and shit! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-03-16 19:02 |
| #22 In Italy patients are triaged. Death rates are only relatively low if ICU care is available to anyone in need. |
| Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 2020-03-16 18:51 |
| #21 Italy's fatal rate is almost certainly less than 8% because the testing is not as widespread as in SKor and thus there are many diagnosed cases in Italy. Iran doesn't provide info on how many tests they do but it is almost certainly far less than SKor and probably less than Italy. I have hypothesized that the many years of brutal air pollution in Iran have weakened the lungs of much of the population leaving them more vulnerable to the virus but that is just a hypothesis. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2020-03-16 18:25 |
| #20 Italy's death rate is nearly 8%; Iran almost 6%. South Korea, where the rate of reported infections has flattened, has a bit less than a 1% death rate. [doing the math at the Johns Hopkins site] |
| Posted by: Bobby 2020-03-16 18:00 |
| #19 Rob hits it. By the way when this piss ant clock boy goes to the Wuhan P-4 lab personally. Get back to us. |
| Posted by: Woodrow 2020-03-16 17:52 |
| #18 The source of this article is the "Doomsday Clock" clowns. They were Soviet mouthpieces back in the day; they're CCP mouthpieces today. If China is directing its puppets to say the bioweapon theory is a "false conspiracy theory", I'd bet it was an escape from their lab. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2020-03-16 16:36 |
| #17 Wuhan flu is dangerous because a high percentage of the infected needs hospital or ICU care. If this care can be provided the death rate seems to be as high as that of a severe flu pandemic. If not, the death rate will soar not only among Wuhan sufferers but also among those who need hospital or ICU care for unrelated reasons. |
| Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 2020-03-16 16:05 |
| #16 Because it IS a bioweapon. It wasn't released deliberately probably but that doesn't make it any less a man made engineered virus that does not occur in nature in this form. We really need people who stand next to reporters with a 12 gauge and then they say something so utterly stupid that everyone knows that it's not true or worthless, *BOOM* on screen education. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2020-03-16 15:26 |
| #15 one weekend of carefully avoiding the outside world, Mr. Wife is bouncing off the walls, poor man. My lovely other gently reminded me this was a good time to begin the spring pruning. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2020-03-16 15:03 |
| #14 Albertsons: Restocking every other day Smart & Final: Restocking Tues & Thursdays. Chinese are looking for another continent to habitate...ya think ??? |
| Posted by: crazyhorse 2020-03-16 14:35 |
| #13 Either we've shut down the whole world's economy for a mild case of the sniffles or we're all gonna die. If the former, this is a good dress rehearsal for the real thing. And if people get in the habit of stocking several weeks worth of supplies going forward, we’ll be more resilient for everything from tornados to job loss as well, so overall a good thing despite the hardships if this is a false alarm. Though I admit this is especially hard on our extraverts — after one weekend of carefully avoiding the outside world, Mr. Wife is bouncing off the walls, poor man. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2020-03-16 13:36 |
| #12 Can't go to church. Can't go to a bar. Can't go to Disneyland (not that I'd want to). Can't buy a frickin' roll of toilet paper. People being laid off from work and the stock market's fallen off a cliff. So far it looks like the cure is a helluva lot worse than the disease. Doctor, I think you're a quack. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2020-03-16 13:20 |
| #11 Well, we have some problems here: 1) If it's an ordinary, naturally occurring virus then why are we shutting down the entire world when media reports make it look like it's not even as bad as H1N1? 2) Can we believe those media reports or is this the worst thing since bubonic plague? 3) Are we shutting down the entire world because it makes Trump look bad or are we merely succumbing to mass hysteria driven by the MSM? 4) Or is it a bioweapon that could wipe out the human race? 5) How do you know it's not a bioweapon? Either we've shut down the whole world's economy for a mild case of the sniffles or we're all gonna die. Any way you look at it, it doesn't look good. Any way you look at it, somebody is feeding us a load of crap. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2020-03-16 13:12 |
| #10 Said it before. Their timing was bad. They are stuck with it now and will look stupid in July. Which isn't October, though I'd imagine most of them will be surprised to find that out too. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2020-03-16 11:33 |
| #9 Ref #8: The numbers do not support the hype, but the hype supports the Dump Trump narrative. Yes, and the media, to include Fox is doing everything they can to support the hype and gloom. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-16 11:27 |
| #8 But for political opportunists and conspiracy theorists, the rising number of Covid-19 infections, the growing ranks of the dead, and the mass disruptions to the daily rhythms of life have created fertile conspiratorial ground. You're doing it right there, bud. The numbers do not support the hype, but the hype supports the Dump Trump narrative. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2020-03-16 10:40 |
| #7 Hard to imagine in modern times alright. What with natural born citizens being dispossessed globally disenfranchised with open borders and wave after wave of 'immigrants', easily recognized by the demands for benefits. Then of course there are the compulsively virtue signalling environmentalists who would gladly see us all dead by the own admission. No, no reason to even suspect any kind of foul play here |
| Posted by: Cesare 2020-03-16 10:20 |
| #6 Politicians and the media want to ride this well past the sell by date. They are too stupid to understand that people look around and see it's not The Walking Dead and move on. That's called "ungovernable." |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2020-03-16 09:32 |
| #5 It is difficult to prove a negative. That is one reason why conspiracy theories are so common. Of course, another reason is that once in a while a seemingly outlandish conspiracy theory turns out to be true. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2020-03-16 09:23 |
| #4 Physics: Works but there are sparks. Chemistry: Works but smells really bad. Biology: Smells really bad but it's just a bunch of bad guesses. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2020-03-16 09:21 |
| #3 p.s. The only physicist who understood Biology was Einstein: biology is a lot more complicated than physics. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru PB 2020-03-16 09:06 |
| #2 So I'm a politician, I'm? My seconds will be calling on you, sir. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru PB 2020-03-16 09:03 |
| #1 No one in our government wishes to discuss or conduct an in-depth investigation into the precise origins of the virus. Covid-19 is the approved, media term of reference, NOT "Wuhan virus" or "Chinese virus." Why can't we simply get with the prescribed narrative and move on ? Of course if you alter the approved narrative and declare the virus WMD, then those responsible for Counter-WMD proliferation could possibly (but unlikely) be held foking responsible ! Anyone heard anything from them, those responsible for WMD counter-proliferation? No, me neither. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-16 08:49 |