Why The 'Lab Leak' Matters: Sensemaking, Consensus and Trust - https://us10.campaign-archive.com/?u=f5b463ce1629b8741c6338a7d&id=c9a52c200c&e=77de4d312e

Whatever the truth of the situation, what has been laid bare is how a consensus position was artificially created.

Where We Stand

• Joe Biden ordered US intelligence late-last month to intensify efforts to determine
the origins of Covid-19.

• A 90-day intelligence review by the US government is forthcoming and will release
potentially new information.

• The head of the WHO has called for a renewed investigation.

• There is no direct evidence for a zoonotic origin of the virus, just as there is no
direct evidence for a lab-leak origin.

• There has been no serious public investigation, aside from a WHO inquiry earlier
this year that has been roundly criticised.
◦◦ In a claim repeated across mainstream media, the WHO inquiry deemed a lab
leak “extremely unlikely”. Yet investigators (many of whom had conflicts of
interest [more on this later]) were barred access to raw data or a visit around
the Institute.
◦◦ The WHO were restricted from accessing key infection sites, including the
Wuhan seafood market

• Attempts at discussing a lab leak were previously problematised as ‘conspiracy
theory’ or a case of anti-Chinese vitriol and Sinophobia. This was the case
especially after Trump began peddling a lab leak theory from May 2020.
Suggestions that the lab leak was tied to racism was maintained recently: a key
example being when a New York Times’ science reporter “mainly covering COVID”
issued a now-deleted Tweet claiming, “Someday we will stop talking about the lab
leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots.”

• Behind the scenes, the possibility of a lab leak has been discussed for some
time. Recently-leaked emails from Dr Anthony Fauci - who had publicly dismissed
a lab leak - and a May US government report suggest the possibility was taken
seriously from the pandemic’s origin. And because the National Institute of Health
and Dr Fauci had directed funds - ending a 2014 ban imposed by Obama - towards
the Wuhan Lab for its research, this introduces a key conflict of interest, and a
possible incentive for them publicly to downplay any lab leak possibility.

• The consensus is shifting. Last month, more than a dozen scientists—top
epidemiologists, immunologists, and biologists—wrote a letter published in the
journal Science calling for a thorough investigation into the possibility of a
lab leak.
◦◦ Anthony Fauci has come out and said he is “not convinced” of a zoonotic
origin.
◦◦ This compounded the longstanding commentary of people like Jamie Metzl,
the futurist and author of Hacking Darwin.