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The deadline set by the Covid Origin Act of 2023 (https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/619/text) to release names, symptoms, hospital visits, and roles of WIV researchers who had Covid-like symptoms in fall 2019 has come and gone. A Google News search for "Covid Origin Act" results in a single article released over the weekend:
https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/covid-was-not-developed-as-a-bioweapon-dni-finds/
This source is not mainstream. It suggests that the legally mandated report has been released, but puts a spin on the results of the report (Covid not likely an intentional bioweapon) without revealing the full text. Most importantly, it doesn't name any of the names that the Act required. So I went to the website of the Office of the Director for National Intelligence. Crickets. Twitter? There has been a post, but it is about Juneteenth.
Edit: I suppose it is possible that the DNI has made their mandated report to Congress, and that no congresspeople have leaked it yet. In which case one would expect articles in a few hours to days?
As an aside, when I mentioned I was excited about this disclosure to a deeply Blue family member, they suggested I've shifted right. I wonder how the disclosure of Covid origins information became right-coded.
The Left committed early to the "bat soup" theory and declared anybody who doubts it racist, and instituted a censorship blockade of any opposition (or even critical discussion) to this. While they were forced to roll it back a little because dissent went high and wide enough in scientific circles that it wasn't possible any more to block, the initial commitment still weights heavily on the topic, and was not acknowledged as wrong even at "mistakes were made" level, and this colors every critique of this position as attacking the Party Line.
I was always surprised and a little confused that the "bat soup" theory was labelled the non-racist theory.
It sounds weird to me too, how "they are dirty people that eat weird disgusting shit and live in anti-sanitary conditions, and that's where the diseases come from" is non-racist, but "they conducted a high-risk high-technology cutting edge research in collaboration with US government and made a mistake" is racist. But then, very little that the wokes say makes sense to me, so that's just one more thing...
@cjet79 as well,
I'm not really sympathetic to the impulse but one of those theories implies that there are poor and exotic acting people in a foreign country which engenders perhaps sympathy and the other one implies something like civilizational threat and may engender fear or anger. They think hey, we have some peculiar livestock practices of our own that may end up creating bugs, I can totally defend Chinese people for this where as "they have labs that are intentionally producing pathogens that killed my grandfather" is the kind of sentiment they fear may inspire hatred or at least greater culpability.
It should also be noted that the people against the lab leak don't refer to it as "bat soup" or denigrate what to us are weird diets.
Maybe it is just different cultural stigmas.
To me, saying that some people or culture eat unclean or diseased food is a big insult. Its a mix of implying they are closer to animals/scavengers, implying they are too stupid to properly clean/prepare their food, and weird in a negative way that they choose to eat gross things.
If some disease started in the US because a minority had unique food preferences. I can't imagine a scenario where people are not called racist for suggesting that 'hey, maybe this minority shouldn't eat weird foods that cause disease'.
Meanwhile the location of a lab doesn't seem to matter a whole lot to me. If it happened in the US would we blame the state where the lab-leak happened? If the research was technically allowed anywhere in the US, I don't think we would. However, if the State specifically allowed shadier research practices then other states, I think we would rightfully blame that state. Like when an oil spill happens in a state that is very pro-oil drilling, there is a bit of a sense that "hey you caused this shit".
Overall I understand why the Chinese government would be happy to promote a Zoonotic origin story. I just don't get why the US government would care to go along with that story. (which is a point in favor of the Zoonotic origin story)
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