On January, 29th 2020, The Washington Post published an article claiming that “experts debunk fringe theory linking China’s Coronavirus to weapons research.” There was honesty in that the “theory” that China had released a bioweapon was indeed fringe. No one of any importance was floating this theory. The Washington Post tells you so right in their article. They claim it began with a Washington Times article citing a former Israeli intelligence officer who “told the Post he didn’t want to comment further.”
The post goes on to explain how this article sparked a social media spreading of the theory. Of course, social media also spreads ghost stories, tales of demonic possession, and of course, wild conspiracy theories the Post can’t be bothered to find the experts who debunk all of that. It was important, however, to find the experts debunking the notion that China might have used one of their two known labs in Wuhan to develop biological weapons.
Again, the Post tells you right in their article that “the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory is a ‘Cellular Level Biosafety Level 4’ facility, which means it has a high level operational security and is authorized to work on dangerous pathogens, including Ebola.” Biosafety Level 4 (BSL4) is the ultimate level of biosafety security.and is supposed to mean the highest level of precautions taken while dealing with deadly pathogens. Particularly viral agents that can easily be transmitted.
The Posts misleading headline and use of dismissive language is undermined by their own reporting. Not that there’s any evidence at all to support the notion that Wuhan may have been developing bioweapons. That’s not misleading, but their trodding out of experts is what undermines their narrative.They quote Milton Leitenberg of the University of Maryland citing his exerptise on chemical weapons as saying of the Wuhan lab; “Of course, if they are doing bioweaponry, it is covert.”
It is not clear why the Post needed an expert to tell us that. Leitenberg’s quote, however, doesn’t even come close to “deunking” a theory that China was working on bioweaponry. The post is in stronger territory when they quote Richard Ebright a chemical biology professor at Rutgers University: “Based on the virus genome and properties there is no indication whatsoever that an engineered virus.”
Citing Tim Trevan, however, they provide a dubious claim made by Trevan followed by a noteworthy quote. The claim, that most countries had ‘largely’ had abandoned their bioweapons research after years of work had proved fruitless. Then the Post quotes Trevan directly: “The vast majority of new, nasty diseases…come from nature.” The elipses is the Post’s doing.
The narrative.is clear by this point; the Post wants you to buy into the idea that people are at risk of coming to believe that the Wuhan virus may be a bioweapon. More specifically an engineered bioweapon. On February, 17th 2020, The New York Times ran a story with the headline: “Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins.” The Times begins by duitfuly reporting that shortly after the Chinese coronavirus appeared and quickly spread, so too did the rumor that this was the result of manufactured effort by the Chinese government.
Making sure to let their readers know that this rumor was a “conspiracy theory,” lacking evidence and dismissed by scientists. This article is reporting on the fact that the Republican Senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton began asking questions about the conronavirus orgins and suggested it could have come from one of the two biosecurity labs in Wuhan. While Senator Cotton acknowledged there was no evidence that it did orginate from one of the labs, he pointed to China’s duplicity and highly misleading
information on the virus and its communicability that “we need to at least ask the question.”
Despite this, the New York Times felt compelled to first tell it’s readers that this question is being picked up by a lot of right wing media outlets and then reminding the reader that China has already told us the the virus orginated in a wet market in Wuhan. The Times later states: “Although much remains unkown about the coronavirus experts generally dismiss the idea that it was created by human hands.” This is the narrative; not genetically engineered therefore did not originate from Wuhan lab. It’s no wonder skeptics of China’s narrative got more skeptical.
The Times continued by pointing out that scientists are pointing out that the Wuhan virus resembled other SARS like viruses that come from bats. “While contagious, so far it appears to largely threaten the lives of older people with chronic health issues, making it a less than effective weapon.” Of course, we know, or more accurately are told now that the COVID 19, weapon or not, has been quite effective in placing several countries across the world in peril.
None the less, the Times diligently reported that a “plethora of misinformation” led to World Health Care workers to call it an infodemic.” By March people were beginning to discover that at least some of that “plethora of misinformation” was coming from both China and the WHO. Before addressing the number of errors and missteps that both China and the WHO made, it is important to understand what was going on in early February. This was when the media was attacking Senator Cotton for even suggesting this might be something the United States should be looking at, and reporting or repeating the WHO’s warnings of an “infodemic” or China’s denials that it came from the Wuhan lab.
For the United States, much of what was happenig during the month of February was fact finding regarding this novel virus. However, as early as January 21st takungpao.com.hk reported that pulmonologist and discoverer of the SARS virus of China’s National Health and Safety Commission, Zhong Nansan said; “In Guan gdong, There are two cases that must be person to person because they have never been to Wuhan. But his family came back and became infected after being sick,” takungpao goes on to state that at the same time, it was confirmed that there was an infection by medical staff.
Five days later, on January 26th of this year, Science Magazine published an article arguing that the Wuhan seafood market (wet market) may not be the source of the novel virus that was spreading globally at that point. They begin by citing a paper “written by a large group of Chinese researchers from several institutions,” published in The Lancet on the 24th of Janurary. “No epidemiological link was found between the first case (December 1st, 2019) and later cases.” The study showed that 13 of the 41 original cases had no link to the seafood market.
Science Magazine follows that quote up with another quote from an infectious disease specialist from Georgetown University, Daniel Lucy who said; “That’s a big number with no link.” Lucy goes on to argue that if the Lancet data “are accuarate,” the first humans infected with this novel coronavirus must have happened in November or perhaps earlier. Science Magazine goes on to point out that The Lancet paper also reveal questions on how accurate the initial data China was reporting. The article ended admitting that we still don’t know where the virus orginated.
Before the Times and the Washington Post ran their narratives on the same day, Business Insider had already run an article on the 3rd of February about Sen. Cotton’s concern the orgins of the Wuhan virus.
With a headline that reads: Republican senator suggests ‘worse than Chernobyl’ conronavirus could’ve come from Chinese ‘superlaboratory,’ without outright accusing the Senator of floating conspiracy theories, it goes out it’s way to link Cotton to conspiracy theories being floated. But on the same day the Post and the New York Times ran their hit pieces on Cotton, so too did Business Insider take another stab at it too.
Two weeks after they wrote their initial article on Sen. Tom Cotton’s raising of concerns over where this virus originated, Business Insider joined the other two papers of note and took that narrative to the nth degree. With a headline that’s a mouthful (21 words in total) bodly claimed that the senator “keeps pushing a thouroughly debunked theory.” They then list five bullet points, the first claiming that Sen. Cotton “keeps airing a long debunked theory…” Long debunked?
The following four bullet points ramble on about Sen. Cotton appearing on FoxNews to make his case. That the Wuhan lab in question did “experiment with dangerous pathogens like Ebola” but that “multiple scientists have long debunked the theory” of the coronavirus being a bioweapon, and criticized Cotton for “spreading conspiracy theories.” The final bullet point admits that China was indeed facing suspicions that they suppressed information.
Besides the misinformation China and the WHO gave the world in late 2019 and the early days of this corona-virus, China had already faced harsh criticism over the 2003-04 SARS outbreak and the CCP’s role in a cover-up…
A novel coronavirus outbreak of global health concern the Lancet Jan 24th, 2020
Experts debunk theory linking China’s coronavirus to weapons research WaPo Jan 29, 2020
Republican senator suggests “worse than Chernobyl” BI Feb 3rd, 2020
“…thouroughly debunked theory” Chinese biological weapon Feb 17th, 2020
Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was alredy debunked WaPo Feb 17th
Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origin NYT (Feb 17th, 2020)
Postdoctoral Recruitment Notice of Zhou Peng Discipline Group of Wuhan Virus Institue (bats)
(November 18th, 2019)
Is the Man Behind the Global Coronavirus Pandemic? ZeroHedge Jan 29, 2020
Timeline of Chinese and WHO misinformation of COVID 19
Jan 26 2020 Science Magazine article on the question of Wuhan virus
Lancet study questioning origin of Wuhan virus cited in Science Mag Jan 24th, 2020
Wuhan based virulogist questioning if virus came from lab Scientific American March 11
FBI warned of biosecurity risk after Chinese Nationals snuck suspicious vials into US
Yahoo article showing FBI documents of Chinese Nationals sneaking biological agents into US
WHO “plethora of misinformation” “infodemic” NYT, Feb 6, 2020
How it all Started: China’s Early Corronavirus Missteps. WSJ Mar 6, 2020
China is not a Coronavirus Role Model WSJ Mar 23, 2020
WHO Tweet: No clear evidence of human to human transmission Twitter Jan 14, 2020
Zhong Nanshan: Wuhan pnemonia was passed from person to person (Chinese News) 1 21, 2020
How early signs of the coronavirus were spotted, spread and throttled in China S. Times Feb 28, 2020
(Republished from CAIXIN Global)
Xi Xinping: Speech at the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee when studying the response to the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic
(Feb 2nd 2020)
WHO Haunted by Old Tweet… NY Post Mar 20th, 2020
The Sars Epidemic and its Aftermath in China: a Political Perspective NCBI 2004
Coronavirus: China’s First Confirmed Covid-19 case traced back to November 17
(South China Morning Post Mar 13th, 2020)
The Case Against China Newsday Apr. 17Th, 2020