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Thursday, April 16, 2020

Suddenly, the Chinese lab origin theory of COVID-19 becomes more than a baseless right-wing conspiracy myth

The point is not that this proves that the virus originated in the lab. Rather, my interest is the overwhelming media narrative that emerged to deny that this was a credible potential source. That narrative emerged around the time that the media was hammering Trump for his use of “China virus” and “Wuhan virus.” That criticism was enhanced by the argument that the virus developed naturally. That could still be the case but it never seemed rational to me to discount the lab theory.

What is most amazing is that, if the Chinese allowed this virus to escape and then arrested doctors raising the alarm over the spread, it would be one of the greatest stories of our lifetime: a world pandemic caused by human error. Millions have been infected and thousands have died. If the cause was negligence by a totalitarian nation (that ignored warnings and punished doctors), this would be a story of the century. Suddenly magazines care saying that they are now thinking about the “unthinkable.” Yet, it was never truly unthinkable was it?

The media only allowed themselves to report on this to "prove" that Trump should have know about this earlier.

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