The BBC’s (alleged) “poor coverage”? How the BBC lost its way on Covid, by Charlie Walsham
The BBC doco Origins: Hunting the source of Covid-19 intro:
It remains one of the world's biggest mysteries: what triggered the Covid-19 pandemic? The BBC's global health correspondent Tulip Mazumdar hears from two of the scientists who were on the controversial China/WHO mission to Wuhan at the start of the year, as well as experts who have investigated outbreaks of new diseases before. Tulip delves into the main theories, and looks at why a hypothesis about a possible accidental lab leak is now being taken much more seriously. [More…]
My summary of the evidence:
- Zoonotic:
- FOR (a) It’s happened before, eg SARS and MERS (b) China says so.
- AGAINST: in two years and nearly 100,000 animals tested, not one found with SARS-Cov-2 or similar
- Lab Leak:
- FOR (a) It’s happened before, eg SARS and MERS (b) Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting research into similar viruses at the time (c) WIV is at the epicentre of the first outbreak.
- AGAINST: China says “no”.
ADDED: One of the bizarrest things in all this: WHO investigators, and then the BBC, media and commenters ALL accept without blushing what China tells the WHO in Wuhan during their February 2021 investigation. Investigators: “We asked if they’d had a lab leak and they said ‘no’”. Oh, okay then. That satisfied the WHO! And the rest. For a very very long time. Until it became impossible to do so any more.
We must not accept that “we may never know the origin”. We need to keep pressure on both China and US researchers involved in the WIV research to release documents about the research they were doing. Even if China won’t, there’s likely critical info on US files. Eg, with the EcoHealth Alliance that was involved in “gain-of-function” research at WIV.
