How did covid-19 originate?
 

Interesting interview with Fauci, including his daily schedule:

Fauci: No scientific evidence the coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab

He said he has 3-4 staff previewing his readings, and gets 1,000 emails a day, lol...

He also said that:
"If something is published in places like New England Journal of Medicine, Science, Nature, Cell, or JAMA—you know,..."

so please don't bother me with any lesser publications...:p

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman says evidence suggests coronavirus was not manmade or released from lab

exact text:
or released purposely
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9fd40db453.jpg
from a Chinese lab.

I am going to make some comments on this and try mightily not to go bad omni. This also is not a criticism of any poster per se.

One of the great problems we now face in this media driven age is that there is so much information that we allow others to interpret and present the information in neat little bits called "Headlines".

So, for example, in the above case, the poster of this article from the Hill presumed that the article said that "there was no evidence that the virus had been released from the Wuhan lab". In fact, if you read the headline provided by the Hill, the conclusion reached would have been justified. I have pasted below the exact headline that prefaced that article.

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman says evidence suggests coronavirus was not man-made or released from lab

It was not until you actually read the article that the word "purposely" came into the discussion. That word changed the entire meaning of the headline. But it was "purposely" left out. Why?? Which would bring us to agendas and what was the author's (Ellen Mitchell) agenda. That we do not know.

A second example was posted by me on another thread. Someone had posted an article from the WaPo which basically reported on a JAMA article where the WaPo reporter claimed that only 30% of patients admitted through the ER in NYC had a fever, and the take away claim was that fever was not a predominant sign of Covid infection.
Again, when the article was reviewed, there was only 1 data point in 4 large tables looking at temperature at the time of ER evaluation/admission and while it was true that only 30% of those patients had a fever, no other ameliorating cause for the lack of fever was even considered. The reason for that was the study had nothing to do with a fever presentation. It was just a collected data point and not considered further by the authors.

WaPo's writer took a miscellaneous bit of data and extrapolated it to an erroneous conclusion, and then reported in an article that "fact" based on an assumption. Again, what was the agenda of the author for doing that? Again, we have no idea.

We need to be very careful when discussing research articles to do the appropriate reading especially when evaluating the lay press's interpretation of studies and data. Reading just the headline (which I am certainly guilty of doing) can make us victims of any reporter's private agenda.

At a minimum, if we want to cite a study or article, we should at least read it and not just believe the headline :D

Confusing terminology. If it "began" in a lab, one could assume it was "originated/created" in the lab...normally it would "begin" in birds or mammals other than humans

Began common definition:2. to come into existence; arise; originate.
coronavirus: : any of a family (Coronaviridae) of large single-stranded RNA viruses that have a lipid envelope studded with club-shaped spike proteins, infect birds and many mammals including humans, and include the causative agents of MERS, SARS, and COVID-19

Pompeo says ‘enormous evidence’ shows coronavirus began in Wuhan lab

https://nypost.com/2020/05/03/pompeo-enormous-evidence-shows-coronavirus-began-in-wuhan-lab/

Indeed.
From the facts I've read, the consensus seems to be (and has for some time) that there is a strong likelihood that SARS-CoV-2 (or something similar thereto) was collected from bat caves and studied in the Wuhan lab, from where it 'escaped' most likely through negligence.

1) So, not man-made.
2) Not released deliberately.
3) "Originated" (sort of) from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab. (Whether this can be called "originated" could be argued of course...)

No, there isn't.

I agree "originated" seems more appropriate then "began".

The component may have been present in bats, however the ignition/origination of the virus occurred in a laboratory.

ORIGINATEimplies a definite source or starting point. the fire originated in the basement

The back-and-forth shows the extent to which the deadly virus, which experts say originated in the city of Wuhan, has turned China into a powerful election-year issue, with both major party candidates scrambling to get on the right side.

But if the bats were source of the infection and wet markets were butchering bats (with the inevitable blood spray), how can we know it was the lab and not the markets which was the initial infection point?

The meaning would have been clearer if the word "originated" was used rather than began. Maybe the headline should have read "coronavirus originated in a bat cave x miles from Wuhan but disease started (began??) in Wuhan""

The "viral infection" could have technically "begun" in the lab even if the virus itself originated in a cave 500 miles away from the Wuhan lab.

So what Pompeo said in the headline is misleading to all. Your reading of the viral infection originating in the lab would be correct. as my reading that the disease itself (Covid-19) started there, but the virus came from a bat cave 500 miles from there.

We still don't know if there was an accidental leak or how the virus got into the general public. It is all speculation.

I was basing my post on such articles as this:
https://www.msn.com/en-ae/news/coron...es/ar-BB12EUKU

Excerpt:

In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4).

WIV issued a news release in English about the last of these visits, which occurred on March 27, 2018. The U.S. delegation was led by Jamison Fouss, the consul general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy’s counselor of environment, science, technology and health. Last week, WIV erased that statement from its website, though it remains archived on the Internet.

What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington.

The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.

Most likely it was transmitted to humans by eating infected fruit bats or pangolin.

Sars: Civet Cats
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...ivet-role-sars

Ebola: Monkeys, fruit bats
https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/index.html

HIV: Monkeys
https://www.theaidsinstitute.org/edu...did-hiv-come-0

then of course "Swine" flu and "Avian" flu

That's not evidence of anything, except someone claiming lab practices may be suboptimal. That's not evidence of the virus originating there at all - the same could be said of the CDC lab that cross-contaminated the testing kits.

AFAIK, there isn't any [verified] evidence where it originated from at this time; only speculation based on information provided by many different sources.
Some experts believe it originated in the Wuhan Wet Market, others believe it originated 'from' the Wuhan lab, others have other theories.

Yet you claimed it a "strong likelihood". It's not. It's purely speculation and this is supposed to be the "fact-based reporting" thread...