Here is something you may have seen already, it's 10 days old.

Tucker: Stupid people got control over our country.

There's a new cure for Corona, but it's being suppressed. ivermectin

Oh, and one here: https://www.englishforum.ch/family-m...our-uk-gp.html NHS privatsiation and selling of patient data.

With both - not enough evidence yet. Especially the first.

Well, they tried but failed.

"Fox News"

That's not news reporting, that's social media at it's worst!

"does that make sense to you? No it doesn't, it doesn't to anybody" LOL, it obviously did to whom ever he quoted.

Contained some interesting information which could have been told within a maximum of 5 minutes without the "moron", "some character", "stupid" and in a non-goading tone of voice.
Honestly, who watches such shit?

A depressing number of Americans do. To counteract, a little John Oliver on Carlson...:



...and on Covid and Carlson:

That there hasn't been a greater reaction to the u-turn over the lab-leak hypothesis is both remarkable and terrifying. You have to consider that a year ago, this was being dismissed as a wild conspiracy theory by the mainstream media, fact checkers were also parroting the line that there was no evidence (https://fullfact.org/health/coronavi...nt-laboratory/), and worst of all, social media and tech giants were actively censoring people, not just people, scientists and experts, who dared question whether this was credible or not.

When you read the story of how this idea went from wild conspiracy theory to a likely scenario (see links below), it shows the depths to which the MSM and social media has sunk in the past 5 years. The truth doesn't actually matter as much as narratives and being on the right side of the argument. The same way as following "the science" doesn't actually mean following the scientific method, rather people doing what they're told to by certain scientific experts.

We've now arrived at the remarkable situation where one cannot take anything they read at face value. Even the independent fact checkers are just as bad. Thanks to the utter debasement of science and the scientific method throughout the Covid pandemic, it's now just a matter of time for the next shoe to drop. Ivermectin as an effective Covid treatment? Proof beyond doubt that masks mandates were pointless? That lockdowns were never required?

The evidence is already there for those willing to open their eyes, the sad thing these days is that people won't listen to what they don't want to hear. It's easier to deride those that do ask these questions as conspiracy theorists, the irony being that by not discussing reasonable questions, people are pushed to ever more outlandish conspiracy theories. There is after all no more an impregnable fortress than a closed mind.

Exclusive: How Amateur Sleuths Broke the Wuhan Lab Story and Embarrassed the Media
https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-h...-media-1596958

The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?
https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-...-box-at-wuhan/

ever since he got pwned by Jon Stewart on his own show, he has gone crazier and crazier and so has his crowd.

Actually as far as I can see it has been well reported so where is your conspiracy? Maybe there just hasn't been a greater reaction because a large majority of virologists believe the origin to be far more likely to be natural and the European media are trying to follow the science instead of right wing nut jobs.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startsw...m-a-wuhan-lab/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57268111 (a pretty balanced report)

It's not impossible the virus came from a lab but - particularly given said lab appears to have nothing near the capability to actually create such a virus - unlikely.

Well, many of those people weren't simply suggesting that the virus COULD have been leaked from the Wuhan lab. They were stating that it WAS leaked or was intentionally created in the lab and then intentionally released to the public, and there was no evidence to support that claim. So if you want to talk about a "closed mind," you should acknowledge the inability to recognize the difference between suggesting something could have happened and stating something as being fact.

Even still today, there isn't really that much evidence to support there having been a leak from the lab.

From your link (the second one):

"None of this proves that the pandemic started in the Wuhan lab, of course: it's entirely possible that it did not."

As we know, Coronaviruses have existed for a very long time, and they tend to mutate. And the virus (or an early mutation of it) existed in China in 2012 when it was discovered among the miners working in bat caves. And a few researchers from the Wuhan lab being sick in November, 2019 does not mean that they were the only ones sick with the virus in Wuhan or in China at that time. There is actually more evidence that it existed in Wuhan and China for quite a while before November, 2019 and before it was diagnosed as being Covid-19 and before a red flag was raised in terms of a massive outbreak there, with a new virus.

So this lab leak theory emerged from a group of anonymous "internet sleuths" that go by the name of DRASTIC who based their theory on old research papers that they found online, including one that mentions the miners who became sick from the bat caves in China in 2012. It is therefore already evident that the virus can be transmitted to humans by bats (as well as other animals). But what DRASTIC did was take their premise that the virus was spread via a leak from the Wuhan lab and then looked for information online in order to self-validate their theory, and chose to ignore information that contradicted it, including the fact that coronaviruses have already spread from bats to humans in China in the past, that coronaviruses have existed in China in the past, and that they tend to mutate, over time. They also chose to ignore the fact that it was not only the three researchers at the Wuhan lab that had become sick with an "unknown virus" as early as November, 2019.

According to this paper, the Covid virus was circulating in China for months before it was detected in Wuhan:

Novel Coronavirus Circulated Undetected Months before First COVID-19 Cases in Wuhan
https://health.ucsd.edu/news/release...han-china.aspx

"Wertheim noted that even as SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in China in the fall of 2019, the researchers’ model suggests it was doing so at low levels until at least December of that year."

So if you really want to NOT be closed-minded about it, you have to also be willing to recognize the evidence that exists that the virus may NOT have been leaked from a lab in Wuhan and that it may have emerged in China as a natural mutation of a virus that is known to have already existed there as early as 2012.

I'm not saying it happened one way or the other, and have never said so. As long as the CCP are in charge of the evidence, it's likely we'll never know one way or the other. What I have a problem with is how even to suggest this as a possibility was shut down by mainstream media and the tech giants. And let's be blunt, the reason why it was so important to "prove" this was a conspiracy theory, was because President Trump said the virus came from a lab.

I'm not looking for a conspiracy, I'm looking for an apology, or rather a mea culpa from all those who shut down the debate, and an acknowledgement of the damage they're causing!

Just to look at the bigger picture for a moment, IF this the lab leak is true then MSM and tech giants censorship will have aided one of the biggest cover-ups in modern history, and ironically in the name of preventing the spread of misinformation.

Here's the thing, right at the beginning of this pandemic there were experts who were talking about "gain of function" viral research being carried out in Wuhan, or how spikes in the proteins of the virus didn't look "normal", and to a man/woman, they were dismissed as crackpots or jokers. Now it turns out that there is evidence that the Wuhan lab, may have been conducting “gain of function” research! I don't think the problem lies with right wing nut jobs, but rather those who dismiss anyone who doesn't follow the narrative as a right wing nut job.

As you just stated, Trump had said "the virus came from a lab" and the fact is, there is no direct evidence to prove that and there was no evidence then either.

I don't think anyone should feel the need to apologize for dismissing a theory for which there is or was no real evidence. And while you yourself might not be saying that it happened one way or another, the sad reality is that a lot of people believed Trump and were claiming as being fact that the virus had come from a lab in China. Clearly, some people's instinct is to blame China or blame a lab in China rather than to ask "What real evidence is there to support that claim or that theory?"

We have arrived at that situation a long, long time ago.
And even before we so drastically did, it was recommendable to put our own thoughts to what we read.

No it isn't. Evidence needs to be proven and that will take a while longer. Back in them days we used to give people time to do so.

That is the weirdest thing of "these days". They way people scream bullshit before someone else has finished a sentence.
There is no time for opinion building anymore, people want to answer quickly, not accurately. The craziest ideas have become amazing truths (not specifically re covid).
I personally just like to hear it all without labelling, then see what it grows into.

However, I liked your post (I don't mean the like button - gosh even that needs specifying now), you do realize people already misread it. Guess people see "TonyClifton" and shout bullshit before reading it. LOL. I'm sure you take it in stride.

__________________
It's all a matter or perspective.
So move your butt and look at it from the other side

According to this wikipedia page, there are 19 virology institutes in the world.

If there is an outbreak of a new, dangerous coronavirus in exactly one of such locations, wouldn't it be logical to think that there might be a link, especially if the institute in question is a research center for coronaviruses?

Exactly that is the question.

If you try to make sense of all the info you have access to even those scientists who urge WHO and others to look more into the lab-leak hypothesis (not necessarily the "virus engineering", mind), you'd notice they all concluded the jury is still out there.

Just to add to this, lab leaks happen all the time. It's really a common occurrence.

https://www.propublica.org/article/h...-coronaviruses
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimam...h=61ca84d37ded

I think evidence and proof are two difference things, at some point a threshold is crossed where there is sufficient evidence for one to strongly suspect something will be proven. Evidence itself need not bee proven.

You should read the The origin of COVID story I linked above, its a long and fascinating read. You have to consider that the source for this story was a freedom of information request to the NIH for documents relating to Wuhan. The evidence has been there for a while!

To play devils advocate, once China realised they had a potentially crippling virus in their country they would have had the options to either protect the world take the hit themselves (and prolong their efforts to become the worlds superpower) or let the virus spread so that the whole world is affected, is it really that far fetched to think they may have wanted to spread the virus?

From where I'm sitting I can't see that any scientific debate has been shut down. And I fail to see why anyone should apologise for something which in all probability is still true. Oh and I really do not care what Facebook might do, that is not scientific debate.

And even if true, what remote difference does it make to the current situation?

I think it's possible, but again, there is a difference between recognizing a possibility and to say or assert that something is true or is fact despite a lack of real evidence. Also, again, you have to acknowledge the fact that an early strain of Covid-19 had already been identified in China years before the outbreak in Wuhan, transmitted by animals, as well as the fact that Covid-19 existed outside of Wuhan as early as December 2019 (e.g. old samples taken in France that later tested positive for the Covid-19) and most likely much earlier than that. The first test for Covid-19 was not developed until February of 2020.

So basically, "correlation is not causation."

I'm not ruling out the lab-leak theory, but until or unless there is more convincing evidence, I cannot say that it is fact. And as I tried to stress above -- that is what I have a problem with at this point -- people who are stating it as being fact.

The entire city of Wuhan was completely shut down and quarantined. People couldn't even leave their houses in that region and the Chinese gov't was flying drones over the streets, yelling at people to go home.

The Chinese gov't also had a team of investigators from the WHO come to Wuhan to investigate the virus in January of 2019. The WHO then took that information obtained from that investigation and compiled a lengthy document that they sent out to governments around the world, informing them about the virus (what they knew at that time) and warning governments about a pending pandemic.

The Chinese government also locked up doctors who tried to warn the rest of the world about the virus as well as withheld information from the WHO long enough for it to spread internationally.

From a Machiavellian point of view it’d be quite a brilliant move.