This is the best summary I could come up with:
Whether it naturally sprang from animals at a Chinese wet market or was a deliberately engineered virus that leaked from a lab remains to this day a question shrouded in mystery, providing fertile ground for conspiracy theories.
In a surprise move, the new chief scientist at the World Health Organization backed a fact-finding mission to China despite his own doubts that COVID-19 escaped from an institute for virology in Wuhan.
In the FT interview, Farrar said he would be in favor of a fresh investigation into the origin of a microscopic virus that wreaked untold economic damage, brought the health system to the brink of collapse, and cost millions of lives around the world.
The WHO previously dispatched a team to investigate the origins, but the results published in early 2021 were tainted in the eyes of many as Beijing insisted in a joint effort that undermined confidence.
The study only served to confirm criticisms repeatedly leveled at the United Nations public health body and its top official, Tedros Ghebreyesus, that it bent over backwards to accommodate the Chinese regime.
In testimony presented before Congress last month, the lead author on a controversial “proximal origin” study rejected allegations from Republican lawmakers that he was unduly influenced by either Fauci or Farrar, then still the director of Wellcome Trust.
The original article contains 582 words, the summary contains 208 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I still don’t get how the wet market theory is less racist than the escaped from a lab theory.
Because one can be pinned down to government involvement, while the other can’t.
It’s the classic CCP defense: “We’re not an authoritarian country, you’re just racist!”.
EDIT: not saying that it was or wasn’t a lab leak, but as soon as the government shoots down the possibility with “you’re racist”, I immediately get suspicious. The same way that I get suspicious when Israel shoots down criticism with “you’re just anti-Semitic”. It’s basically gaslighting with identity politics.
It was never the theory that was racist, it was the amount of evidence behind it.
If “there’s a virology lab there” was all the evidence you needed to assert it was a lab leak, chances are it’s because you’re racist. That’s why early on, this theory was most popular with far-right reactionaries.
Meanwhile, what’s been the origin story of every similar virus? Animal trade. That’s why early on, this theory was most popular with actual scientists who were actually qualified to have an opinion.
The headline would be unsurprising even if it ended at the word China.
The source of COVID is likely China’s $60 billion dollar+ fur industry, and that is the reason they don’t want anyone looking. I’d bet if they did analysis, ancestors of COVID are found in the bats in Suning County, which is fairly close to Wuhan and one of the largest fur markets on the planet. The raccoon dogs that were sold at the market in Wuhan were likely animals with poor fur coats (because they were sick) and sent to butcher rather than being skinned for their fur. China’s fur industry requires vast tracts of land clearance since one of the primary furs, which is mink are obligate carnivores, so they need a supply of meat. The land clearance forces the horseshoe bats to roost in the barns with the animals that include minks and raccoon dogs. It explains every aspect of that the lab leak theory fails to address, with the two lineages, the genetic clock starting in October, and even why it spilled over to people in the time period that it did
The headline says “fact-finding mission to China” though.
