COVID lab leak origin now embraced by MSM?

It wasn’t so long ago when the idea that the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic “might have leaked from a Chinese laboratory” was “dismissed by many as a fringe conspiracy theory”. Source. Speaking about the lab leak hypothesis, a journalist from CNN (a network who long thought the notion fanciful) asserted that the “far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory”. Source. The New York Times played their role, informing us: “In government and academia, experts have ruled out the notion that it was concocted as a bioweapon. And they agree that the new pathogen began as a bat virus that evolved naturally, probably in another mammal, to become adept at infecting and killing humans.” Source. They quoted an ‘expert’ asserting that the “odds were astronomical against a lab release as opposed to an event in nature”. They also claimed: “Senior Trump administration officials have pushed American spy agencies to hunt for evidence to support an unsubstantiated theory that a government laboratory in Wuhan, China, was the origin of the coronavirus outbreak, according to current and former American officials. The effort comes as President Trump escalates a public campaign to blame China for the pandemic.” Perhaps best of all, a NYT reporter put out a Tweet, since deleted, stating that the theory had “racist roots”. Source. Even in 2023, though their language had softened, the NYT was still putting out misinformation, noting that the ‘conspiracy theory’ was “gaining traction, even as evidence builds that the virus emerged from a market”. Source.

How lovely it is then, so soon after the US government released a report indicating - among other things - that the lab leak hypothesis was probably correct, and after my brief note in the BMJ rebuking the journal for their deceitful reporting on the report, and after the CIA asserted that the lab leak hypothesis is “most likely” (even reported by the NYT, source), that now the New York Times puts out an article declaring that we were badly misled, that “some officials and scientists hid or understated crucial facts, misled at least one reporter, orchestrated campaigns of supposedly independent voices and even compared notes about how to hide their communications in order to keep the public from hearing the whole story”. Source. And as for that infamous lab in Wuhan, “the details that have since emerged show that safety precautions might have been terrifyingly lax”. The article even indicates the next pandemic could arrive soon as researchers associated with the same lab are tinkering with bat viruses “to see if they could infect human cells and pose a pandemic risk”, and their safety protocols are insufficient. The possibility is even raised that “perhaps we were misled on purpose”.* Finally, some great questions were posed: “Why did it take until now for the German public to learn that way back in 2020, their Federal Intelligence Service endorsed a lab leak origin with 80 to 95 percent probability? What else is still being kept from us about the pandemic that half a decade ago changed all of our lives?”

Okay then.

*Extra: Since they brought it up… One reason for lying about the origins of COVID would be the issue of culpability. Surely the Chinese, and the Americans who funded them (source), ought to be held responsible? But another possible reason is far more sinister. What if the lab leak wasn’t so accidental? Perhaps to try and address the overpopulation the elites (those who own/control pretty much everything) are so concerned about, or to enrich and empower themselves, which happened in a big way? Too much? Too crazy? Too conspiratorial for your liking? Just think about how many so-called conspiracy theories turned out to be correct. Just think about how much about COVID they got wrong - pretty much everything. And how much they used fear to modify our behaviour, how much they outright lied about, and how they even admit that they lied. And think on how much non-COVID stuff they lied about. Like WMDs, Russiagate, and Laptopgate - which could have cost Trump the 2020 election. Just a thought.

Extra: In case you were wondering if this article means that the NYT (and the MSM in general) is now trustworthy, let me point out that, just like a medical journal article on the jab’s side effects feeling the need to throw in, “yeah but the jab saved a bunch of people too”, the NYT article just had to claim that some lab leak theorists were “acting in terrible faith, using the debate over pandemic origins to attack legitimate, beneficial science, to inflame public opinion, to get attention”, so that for the experts, “circling the wagons and vilifying anyone who dared to dissent might have seemed like a reasonable defense strategy”. As a veteran of the Great Meme War, and as someone who remembers past the last few months, I assure you, the New York Times (and the mainstream media) is not your fren.