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President Trump Is Leading a Once-in-a-Generation Effort to Ensure Americans Have Access to a COVID-19 Vaccine – The White House (archives.gov)

I see a lot of irony in this WH press release.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-did-covid-come-from-new-evidence-lab-leak-hypothesis-78be1c39?st=cunr817i0xvrmtl&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-did-covid-come-from-new-evidence-lab-leak-hypothesis-78be1c39?st=cunr817i0xvrmtl&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Duh. 

It astounds me that people deny this reality that has been known since almost day one. The shit came from a lab in China.

The simplest explanation is most often the correct one. And the obvious tell that it came from a leak from a lab in China is how the Chinese gov’t reacted. The Chinese gov’t covered it up and went on the attack-deny-til-you-die mode. Tell tale sign #1 they were guilty as sin. 

I view China's response as predictable whether it was a lab leak or not.  I doubt initially they would have known internally.  They had something mysterious spreading rapidly, so they shut cities down trying to corral it, and of course "managed" the news, as they always do.  Even the possibility of a lab leak would need to be suppressed.

If they now KNOW it was not a lab leak they'd still be not wanting to discuss the matter.

And stipulating for the moment it likely did originate in that lab, then the question is whether it was an intentional leak or accidental, and whether the lab modified a virus with intent to spread it or just had one of their modifications leak out.  As I've said, I think it is POSSIBLE it was zoonotic.  I don't think we'll ever know with high certainty it's origins other than starting in China.

And I'm not sure it matters IFF it was accidental.

I agree at this point the most probable source is that lab and that it was modified therein.  Most probable is of course different from definite.

I'm led to understand that folks fairly routinely modify these things with no bad intent at all to study them.  

What the Chinese govt did after th
e leak was intentional.
Allowing infected people to travel internationally to spread to the rest of the world.

As opposed to... Basically imprisoning Westerners in China based on the existence of the thing they want to cover up? 

Yeah, nothing's going to get more public scrutiny on China than a bunch of foreign governments and media sources asking "Why won't China let our citizens come home?"

Even if you put a political calculus spin on it, letting them out increased the likelihood that the virus would sprout up somewhere else and it would be anyone EXCEPT China that got the initial blame--might have even happened in Italy which was the first Western hot spot. 

I mean, nobody is trying to say China's not the bad guy here, but let's think things through rationally. I'm assuming they wanted to try to manage this and cover it up, and it's really hard to cover up an international travel ban. 

could have managed it much better by being a bit more honest

like maybe let other governments around the world know that a potentially dangerous virus had accidentally leaked from a lab and they are suggesting no travel for anyone, in China or internationally, until they learn more.

I know that's not what they do or how they go about things, but that's edzachery why they're known as the "bad guy"

just one very good reason to blame them for COVID