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Covid did not escape from a Chinese lab.
China is an untrustworthy, paranoid, autocratic state with a history of deadly epidemiological coverups (SARS), and it mishandled and lied about the covid crisis early on.
But covid is not a bioweapon.
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China is an untrustworthy, paranoid, autocratic state with a history of deadly epidemiological coverups (SARS), and it mishandled and lied about the covid crisis early on.
But covid is not a bioweapon.
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Here& #39;s a pretty good high-level explainer from @elizabarclay:
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/4/21156607/how-did-the-coronavirus-get-started-china-wuhan-lab
2/">https://www.vox.com/2020/3/4/...
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/4/21156607/how-did-the-coronavirus-get-started-china-wuhan-lab
2/">https://www.vox.com/2020/3/4/...
Here& #39;s @snopes rebuttal to an incredibly irresponsible @washingtonpost op-ed that pushed the conspiracy theory:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/
3/">https://www.snopes.com/news/2020...
https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/
3/">https://www.snopes.com/news/2020...
tldr: "Not only do these arguments — discussed in detail below — lack merit on their own, factual scientific studies concerning the origin of SARS-CoV-2 actually provide the strongest refutation to date of the claim the virus was & #39;created in a lab.& #39;"
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Article after article has quoted esteemed scientists with direct expertise in the field who have staked their reputations to rebut these claims, using evidence and reason.
https://www.newsweek.com/claim-that-coronavirus-came-lab-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say-1498308
5/">https://www.newsweek.com/claim-tha...
https://www.newsweek.com/claim-that-coronavirus-came-lab-china-completely-unfounded-scientists-say-1498308
5/">https://www.newsweek.com/claim-tha...
It& #39;s not true.
There are actual coronavirus conspiracies, like the loopholes that let big businesses siphon 94.5% of the $349 Paycheck Protection Program earmarked for small businesses:
#ppp">https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/20/great-danes/ #ppp
6/">https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/2...
There are actual coronavirus conspiracies, like the loopholes that let big businesses siphon 94.5% of the $349 Paycheck Protection Program earmarked for small businesses:
#ppp">https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/20/great-danes/ #ppp
6/">https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/2...
And the conspiracies by private equity companies to slash health workers& #39; pay while collecting bailouts and denying claims and spending millions to lobby against surprise billing:
https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1252340836940931074
7/">https://twitter.com/doctorow/...
https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1252340836940931074
7/">https://twitter.com/doctorow/...
As with 9/11 truthers, the coronavirus-in-a-lab truthers have grasped something essential - that opportunistic sociopaths view tragedies as opportunities to loot and consolidate power - and then reach the wrong conclusion: that they caused this crisis.
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Disaster capitalists and other war criminals DO sometimes cause crises (toppling governments in Latinamerica, say), but they don& #39;t need to.
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They have created a world that& #39;s so unstable that disasters happen on the reg, and they have "ideas lying around" waiting for the right moment.
#disaster-socialism">https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/21/most-dangerous-ghost/ #disaster-socialism
10/">https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/2...
#disaster-socialism">https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/21/most-dangerous-ghost/ #disaster-socialism
10/">https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/2...
This is actually way more sinister. It means that when elites contemplated a crisis like 9/11 or coronavirus, their response wasn& #39;t to plan to prevent the crisis or soften its impact, it was to plan how to use it to their advantage.
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We don& #39;t need to indict sociopaths for conspiring to cause crises. The depravity of planning to profit from them is more than sufficient to condemn them as unfit to rule.
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