Having scrolled through two news reports and two PDF-format documents, I am ready to release an unclassified summary of my findings.


I opened this thread with these particulars:

"No direct evidence COVID began in Wuhan lab, US intelligence report says"
Olivia Gazis for CBS News; June 23, 2023.
https://www.cbsnews.com/new...ligence-report-says/

"Potential Links Between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Origin of the Covid-19 Pandemic"
Office of the Director of National Intelligence; June 23, 2023.
https://www.dni.gov/files/O...OVID-19-20230623.pdf


Subsequently, forum member "82" offered these other particulars:

"NIH documents provide new evidence [that the U.S.] funded Gain-Of-Function [virus] research in Wuhan"

quote U.S.-funded experiment in China posed biosafety risks but did not cause Covid-19 pandemic, scientists say.

Sharon Lerner, Mara Hvistendahl and Maia Hibbett for The Intercept; September 9, 2021.
https://theintercept.com/20...f-function-research/

"Fauci Was 'Untruthful' to Congress About Wuhan Lab Research, New Documents Appear To Show"
Ed Browne for Tech & Science; September 9, 2021.
https://www.congress.gov/11...4-20211201-SD004.pdf


I have scrolled through all of this material, "eyeballing" various paragraphs and sentences and looking for "red flags", but I did not find any.

I don't think there is any conflict or disagreement between any part of this material and any other part of this material. I think it all says the same thing.

The news report of September 9, 2021, from the Intercept, which was provided by forum member "82", starts with this:

quote U.S.-funded experiment in China posed biosafety risks but did not cause Covid-19 pandemic, scientists say.

I don't see anything in any of this material that contradicts the way in which I titularized (or titled) this forum topic; to wit:

quote Newly declassified... U.S. 'intel' cannot pin Covid on any of China's virus labs.

Considering the idea that the Covid-19 pathogen could have emerged directly from nature, or from the so-called "wet markets", and without any connection to any research or other activities or protocols at any of China's virus research labs, I have this: In 1918, a previously unknown strain of the H1N1 virus emerged and gripped the world in a pandemic that killed an estimated 675,000 people in the U.S. alone. This is known as the Great Influenza pandemic or more colloquially, the "Spanish flu."

The science of virology at this time (1918) was very rudimentary. There clearly wasn't any Gain-Of-Function research at this time. The words "Gain-Of-Function" or GOFR would not become "a thing" until our current century, which followed that one. And yet, the Great Influenza pathogen emerged.

One theory is that the Great War (World War One) set up a kind of giant-sized "wet market" just behind the battle lines. Large quantities of livestock were brought close to the front lines in France, where the animals were slaughtered to feed the British, French and American armies. There was huge proximity between all of this livestock, and the carcasses at the slaughter facilities, and constantly large numbers of soldiers passing through on their way to or from the battle lines.

I've seen a TV documentary about a researcher who studied this. His conclusion is that this is what gave rise to the Great Influenza pathogen—a giant "wet market", as we would call it, with similarities to the wet markets in China and particularly, the wet market in Wuhan that became front and center in discussions of Covid-19.

Having viewed that TV documentary, I don't think it's in any way unreasonable to think that Covid-19 could have happened without any connection to any of China's virus labs.

I thank forum member "82" for this opportunity to "weigh in" (so to speak) on what to make of the origins of the Covid-19 pathogen.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 06-26-2023).]

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 06-27-2023).]