Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Let there be snark.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / More Pandemic Reads : No End to the Tragedies

More Pandemic Reads : No End to the Tragedies

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my first inclination is to suggest that rural people have, in part, done this to themselves, but *preventing* those outcomes is part of what you elect a fucking governor to do, even if tucker carlson tells them to do otherwise.

the shallow answer is “fucked around, found out”, but a lot of republican governors have the blood of covid dead all over their hands, and before we blame ol’ jim down the road who listens to OANN 14h a day, let’s look at the people who swore oaths to protect their people.

abbott or noem or tate or desantis or [fill in the blank] basically did nothing to help prevent these outcomes because they’re more interested in guest spots on fox news than they are interested in governing their state or protecting the people who live in it from harm.

it’s not that these governors didn’t act aggressively enough — they acted aggressively *in opposition to protective measures that were clearly successful elsewhere*.

not enough gets made about the fact that all of these governors simply do whatever conservative media tells them because they have no ideas or thoughts of their own. they’re all weak, and they’re all following the leader because they are weak and stupid, and bad at politics.

not enough gets made about the fact that all of these governors simply do whatever conservative media tells them because they have no ideas or thoughts of their own. they’re all weak, and they’re all following the leader because they are weak and stupid, and bad at politics.

so, yes, there’s some personal and individual choice at play here, but *good* politicians know how to direct that energy. all of these people are bad at politics along with everything else they’re bad at. telling people what they want to hear is easy.

this is what’s wrong with horserace coverage and wrong with the entire “win the news cycle” way of covering politics. it rewards cowards who do what pundits tell them to do. it punishes elected officials who do what needs to be done.

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… Moderated by Science reporter Jon Cohen, the online debate brought together scientists from both sides of the issue. Linfa Wang, a bat coronavirus researcher at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, is convinced the virus originated in nature. Evolutionary virologist Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona said he had kept an open mind from the start. He signed a May letter in Science asking for more serious investigation of the lab-leak theory but now strongly leans toward a natural origin.

On the other side were evolutionary biologist Jesse Bloom of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center—who said he considers a lab origin “highly plausible”—and Alina Chan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute who specializes in genetic engineering. Chan, who has become one of the most visible proponents of the lab-leak idea and has co-authored a book on the origins issue, paraphrased comedian Jon Stewart to explain why she believes it is just too much of a coincidence that the pandemic began so close to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV): “In 2019, a novel SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] coronavirus, with a novel genetic modification, appeared in a city where there’s a lab studying novel SARS coronaviruses with novel genetic modifications.”

The hourlong discussion touched on many issues including China’s lack of transparency, biosafety procedures at WIV, the possible roles of the Chinese wildlife trade and the Huanan seafood market in spreading the virus, and the implications of a new study reporting the discovery of the closest relatives of SARS-CoV-2 so far, in bats in a cave in Laos, which Wang argued shows potentially dangerous coronaviruses are common in nature…

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From a much longer, informative, thread:

Reader Interactions

86Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    In the beginning of any pandemic, we have 4 options for what could happen:
    1) continually occurring disease, with small or large surges
    2) local elimination of disease
    3) global eradication of disease
    4) complete extinction of the pathogen

    5) Human extinction.

  2. 2.

    Elizabelle

    Excellent articles, Anne Laurie.

    I look forward to reading about Mrs. Giacopini.  And Mangy Jay in FP.  And the Hubei bats.  Thank you.

  3. 3.

    Cmorenc

    No matter how strong the evidence presented that covid spread to humans from a natural animal host in wuhan, fox and murdoch are going to insistently present that it originated in a bioweapons lab in wuhan vis genetic manipulation, because that supports the political narrative they are pushing wrt china and responsibility for the pandemic’s consequences for the us population.  Never mind that they simultaneously push the narrative that the covid pandemic is overblown hype such that government efforts to limit contagion are needless repugnant infringements on personal freedom.

  4. 4.

    Doug R

    Two of the lowest vaccination spots in Canada: a rural area in Manitoba and a rural area in Alberta. Both with LOTS of Mennonites.
    As the descendent of Mennonites, I am ashamed of the hubris of these people.

  5. 5.

    Fair Economist

    I have always thought, based on the sequence information showing substantial evolution *between* bat and human, and the evolutionary advantages of jumping from a farmed species, that this jumped from bats to some farm animal, and, years later, from there to us. But I hadn’t been aware that China had raccoon dog farms (the #1 suspect for an intermediate host) within a few miles of a HUGE population of wild bats.

    I think the Chinese government thinks the same thing I do. Why else would they shut down those farms? And, frankly, pushing the nonsense claim that it originated out of China is probably just an attempt to muddy the waters. They don’t want to admit they were so *outrageously* irresponsible as to provide a bat-to-human evolutionary runway after SARS1 showed how dangerous these bat viruses could be. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the CCP is even boosting the “lab leak” speculation, because they know it’s not actually *true* and so won’t cause trouble for them, but revealing that it got here via animal farms could cause them a lot of trouble.

  8. 8.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Well, the totally predictable, not to say inevitable, has happened. My youngest brother — the RWNJ, flat-earth-believing, vaccine-refusing brother — has been down with flulike symptoms for about ten days, and finally took a Covid test last night. Yup, you guessed it. He tested positive.

    I love him dearly, and obviously I hope it proves to be a mild case with full recovery, but I’m having real anger issues right now. I’m simply furious.

  11. 11.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne:   Does RWNJ bro have a pulse oximeter?  What are his oxygen levels looking like?

    Need to inform Mr. Genius that lung damage can occur long before he is aware he is in trouble.

    My sympathies, SD.  Keep us posted.

  13. 13.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    Thank you, Baud. I’m sure I’ll worry plenty later on, but right now I’m purely pissed. In a rage at his pigheadedness.

  14. 14.

    Nelle

    @Elizabelle: At the very beginning, a doc friend of mine told me to buy a pulse oximeter.  My husband thought I was over-reacting, but it has brought much peace of mind from time to time.  Worth every penny.

  15. 15.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    not enough gets made about the fact that all of these governors simply do whatever conservative media tells them because they have no ideas or thoughts of their own. they’re all weak, and they’re all following the leader because they are weak and stupid, and bad at politics.

    so, yes, there’s some personal and individual choice at play here, but *good* politicians know how to direct that energy. all of these people are bad at politics along with everything else they’re bad at. telling people what they want to hear is easy.

    this is what’s wrong with horserace coverage and wrong with the entire “win the news cycle” way of covering politics. it rewards cowards who do what pundits tell them to do. it punishes elected officials who do what needs to be done.

    The other thing wrong with horserace coverage is that it puts bad faith statements and ideas on a par with actual, you know, *reality*.

    There is simply no rational argument, even from a libertarian perspective, for calling sensible pandemic restrictions an impingement on freedom. The government can, and should, prevent people from becoming mobile bio-weapons labs that will infect others.

    We’ve now learned that the Republicans can be in a situation in which the truth is trivially obvious, and they’ll still lie, confident that no one will be crass enough to point out that they are, literally causing the deaths of people. And what excuse do they have? “Duh, well, y’all can’t *point* to the *specific* people I’m killing, which means, uh… oh RIGHT, I didn’t kill them, because I only did it INDIRECTLY.”

    Alas, this has been true in the US for a long time – political actors *can* kill people, and no one of consequence will give a damn, so long as the people who die can’t have their deaths tied *directly* to the actions of the political actors. (I’m including, e.g.,  lobbyists who urge Congress to allow their johns to poison people, and, of course, the companies that hired the lobbyists, etc., as part of the “Get Out Of Responsibility, Free!” cardholders.)

    Anyway: yeah, in lalaland, “Republicans want to take health insurance from 20 million, which means some of those people will die” is far too shrill and nasty and partisan, even if – stop me if you heard this before – even *IF* they did it within a couple years of a deadly global pandemic.

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    I haven’t the faintest idea about his oxygen levels or any other details. I think he would have said if he were going to be hospitalised or under a specific course of treatment, but right now I can’t talk to him or send him an email. I’m too mad, and would likely say things I’d end up regretting. Thanks for your good thoughts.

  19. 19.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: I can’t read it, but he claims Biden’s approval is in the low 40s. I thought he was up to 50 again?

    It sounds like a BJ thread, basically.

  21. 21.

    ArchTeryx

    @Baud: Sounds like his usual concern trolling to me. The sausage is being made on the infrastructure bill so of course he wants to throw poisoned peanuts from the peanut gallery.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    @zhena gogolia:

    John Harwood
    @JohnJHarwood
    ·39m
    new CNN poll on how Americans view Biden’s performance in office:
    50% approve
    49% disapprove
    largely unchanged from August and September polls

  28. 28.

    zhena gogolia

    This morning I’ve been enjoying a YouTube video of a Soviet evening news program from October 1987. It seems so benign. Dam-building, record harvests. They even report on the Loch Ness monster.

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    Today’s paper looks at regional zip codes with lowest vaccination rates and all have a very high percentage of voters who were yes on the Newsom recall. i.e., least surprising correlation ever.

    Common clay, salt of the earth, morons.

  31. 31.

    rikyrah

    The states are mostly those who refused Medicaid expansion. The result of that has been the decimation of rural health care in this country.

    Yet, they continue to vote for them.

    Governors who push ‘solutions’ pushed by rich donors…

    but, won’t push the FREE VACCINE.

    AND, purposefully try and tie the hands of those in government who want to put in protective measures against COVID.

    Then, combine that with their refusal to vaccinate, even though their Orange Savior is fully vaccinated.

  33. 33.

    lowtechcyclist

    it’s not that these governors didn’t act aggressively enough — they acted aggressively *in opposition to protective measures that were clearly successful elsewhere*.

    Exactly. We should look on this as a war between America (and the world, really, but that won’t rouse the flag-humpers) and the coronavirus. And these people have unquestionably sided with the damned virus.

    They are traitors to America. It’s that simple.

  34. 34.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    They’re probably happy with 50, as much shit as he’s had to deal with. I still wish they’d crow about the economy more. Normies aren’t economists! They’ll be like “you know, it IS good”. It is. Brag!

  35. 35.

    Cermet

    Protein hunger is universal among primates and just something that is so innate there is no way we won’t eat just about any animal – and as AGW along with growing population, the need to tap any/all sources is overwhelming. As for an idea intermediate host, those are pigs. In fact, the great pandemic of 1918 most likely got started from a pig farm in Kanas that was situated along a major migatory bird route (with nearby ponds the ducks loved and provided pigs drinking water; then there was a nearby military training base. The perfect storm.)

  36. 36.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’m not saying to kick your brother when down with an “I told you so,” but it seems like this is the kind of moment to mention that “mild” through “moderate” doesn’t mean what people generally think. If you have horrible aches, food and drink suddenly have no taste, or altered tastes, if you’re coughing so hard you sometimes think you broke a rib, if the last time  you got up, you had to balance yourself off a wall, and realized you have to pretty much stay in bed before you fall… but your sats were 92+, that’s not a “serious” case (which means “requiring hospitalization”).

    What’s even crazier is, there are now multiple meds that can provide protection *if* it’s caught early, and so many people are in denial that they won’t ever be helped by them.

    And I’ll tell you, you can blame Trump, and Desantis and Abbott, and a whole bunch of others, but save your deepest scorn for every Republican who knew their fellow Republicans were taking actions that would kill Americans (or, if we must, “American citizens”), and failed to speak up.

    *Those* are the foulest of the foul. They are the ones who sit by and say “I don’t want to go out on a limb, and preach overthrowing an election… but if it *works*, I don’t want to be shut out of the goodies!” Of course, they already were cool with “I don’t want to go out on a limb and criticize TFGs handling of the pandemic… but if it works, I’m sure I can protect me, and my own, and sure, people will die, but I don’t want to be shut out of the goodies!”

    That is, in fact, one of the jobs of the press: to hold up the mirror of truth. And it’s the one they’ve decided they can throw away. I wonder if they’ll ever look in the mirror of their own truth, and see how they are, in fact, a bit more responsible than the “who cares, I won’t scream in favor, but if it works, I want my goodies!” Republicans. Those journalists are spiking real, important stories that should be in the public eye – the Republicans are just venal little toads, with minds, hearts, and spirits, too pathetic to remind them they’re supposed to be public servants. Cowards, the lot of them.

  37. 37.

    Baud

    @Kay: 

    He does a good job crowing, I think. I think they are focused on getting the BBB bills finished. Then I expect a major roadshow, especially in the spring.

  39. 39.

    Ksmiami

    @Baud: nah as bad as pandemics are, unlike a large NEO impact (e.l.e level) or super intelligent AI taking over, there are always survivors…

  40. 40.

    Ksmiami

    @SiubhanDuinne: tell him to go to a hospital before he gets worse. Part of the reason we have such bad outcomes from Covid hospitalization is people wait until they’re too sick to actually help…

  41. 41.

    NotMax

    @zhena gogolia

    A troika from the before times:

    1) In a prison, two inmates share their experience.

    “What did they arrest you for?” one of them asks. “Was it a political or common crime?”

    “Of course political. I’m a plumber. They summoned me to the district Party committee to fix the sewage pipes. I looked and said, ‘Hey, the entire system requires replacement.’ So, they gave me seven years.”

    2) A man walks into a shop. He asks the clerk, “You don’t have any meat?” The clerk says, “No, here we don’t have any fish. The shop that doesn’t have any meat is across the street.”

    3) A nervous man came to the KGB. “My talking parrot disappeared.”

    “This is not our case. Go to the criminal police.”

    “Excuse me. Of course I know that I have to go to them. I am here just to tell you officially that I disagree with the parrot.”
    :)

  43. 43.

    Old School

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    My sympathies.  My RWNJ brother-in-law, his wife and two kids all tested positive for COVID a few weeks back.  The nephew in his early 20s was hit the hardest, but thankfully they all seem to be getting better.  Here’s hoping your brother bounces back too.

    Of course, my mother-in-law now argues that we can get together with the family for Christmas because they’ll all be immune during that time.

  45. 45.

    Ken

    i would like more cable news hosts who invite the governors with large rural populations (which is most of them) to ask those governors what they are doing to address this.

    “We’re banning all vaccinations, and are confident there soon won’t be any difference between rural and urban death rates.”

  46. 46.

    Nicole

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’m so sorry to hear this.  Sending best wishes for a quick recovery to your brother, and I totally get why you’re so angry.  He’s probably terrified right now.

  50. 50.

    Soprano2

    @Nelle: My husband’s doctor sent us a package with one of those pulse oximeters in it when we both had Covid. It was a time you couldn’t find them in any store anywhere. It’s hanging in the bathroom; I use it a few times as week, as does my husband.

  52. 52.

    Gravenstone

    @Eolirin: Unfortunately, he tried that approach. Still didn’t work for him.

    Yes, I consider the intentionally slow walked/botched national response as akin to murder.

  60. 60.

    Gravenstone

    @NotMax: My initial response was “dafuck is Og?” I now sheepishly discover that they’ve expanded the periodic table when I wasn’t looking.

  62. 62.

    Betty

    OT: Is it just my Kindle at fault or is anyone else experiencing a “reload” notice after a few minutes on this site? This just started yesterday.

  65. 65.

    catclub

    @Cmorenc: Never mind that they simultaneously push the narrative that the covid pandemic is overblown hype such that government efforts to limit contagion are needless repugnant infringements on personal freedom.

     

    Exactly, you would think if you were told that this was sent as a weapon by the Chinese, then all methods to mitigate it are necessary as an act of national self protection.  Instead: “This was sent by the Chinese as a weapon. But we do not advocate doing anything to make that weapon less harmful to our economy and population.”

  67. 67.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne:  I suspect you know this already, but definitely clue your brother into the danger of Covid causing “silent hypoxia.”  As in, his oxygen intake could already be way below normal, and a Covid patient will not experience the pain and shortness of breath that alerts pneumonia patients to danger. Covid patients are showing up at hospitals with massive lung damage already underway.

    NY Times article from last year, by an ER physician.  Having a pulse oximeter is the only thing that alerted several of his medical colleagues to the fact they had Covid and their lungs were under attack.

    Richard Levitan, MD: NY Times: The Infection That’s Silently Killing Coronavirus Patients

    … patients did not report any sensation of breathing problems, even though their chest X-rays showed diffuse pneumonia and their oxygen was below normal. How could this be?

    We are just beginning to recognize that Covid pneumonia initially causes a form of oxygen deprivation we call “silent hypoxia” — “silent” because of its insidious, hard-to-detect nature.

    Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs in which the air sacs fill with fluid or pus. Normally, patients develop chest discomfort, pain with breathing and other breathing problems. But when Covid pneumonia first strikes, patients don’t feel short of breath, even as their oxygen levels fall. And by the time they do, they have alarmingly low oxygen levels and moderate-to-severe pneumonia (as seen on chest X-rays). Normal oxygen saturation for most persons at sea level is 94 to 100 percent; Covid pneumonia patients I saw had oxygen saturations as low as 50 percent.

    …. Their pneumonia had clearly been going on for days, but by the time they felt they had to go to the hospital, they were often already in critical condition.

    Dr. Levitan had patients show up in the ER, chatting away on their cell phones, with oxygen levels that doctors previously did not believe would support consciousness.

  70. 70.

    JaneE

    I would love to live full time only in my little rural town, but I need regular medical care from specialists, and that won’t happen here probably ever.  One good car crash on the highway can max out our hospital 4 bed ICU, and the life-flight people get put to use fairly regularly for heart attacks and trauma patients.  If you have a dozen choices in the big city and half a dozen in the suburbs, we may have 1 or 2 or none at all, depending on what goods and services you are looking for – medical care is not an exception. Rural people tend to be self reliant and not want to depend on the government (or anyone else) for the things they need because they have always had to and necessity became a virtue generations ago.  Here specifically, the DWP buying up all the land early last century just reinforces the don’t-trust-the-government-they-won’t-help-you GOP mentality.  And the local cable channel has all the right wing cable news to make sure no conspiracy theory and Q talking point goes unaired.  Not everyone is crazy, but they sure get the most ink.  I was surprised that Biden actually got more votes here than Trump.  It was close, but there are some sane GOPers left.  Or there were.   The last report showed a slight slowdown in the number of new cases – only 61 since a week ago.  The week before we were running about 30 a day.  About half school kids, about 80% under 50.  At least some of the new cases are fully vaccinated.   Our total county population is a hair over 19,000.  At this rate we will hit 10% of the county has had Covid-19 by next week or the week after.  At least there are more masks on people walking Main Street. 

  72. 72.

    lowtechcyclist

    @catclub:

    Exactly, you would think if you were told that this was sent as a weapon by the Chinese, then all methods to mitigate it are necessary as an act of national self protection.  Instead: “This was sent by the Chinese as a weapon. But we do not advocate doing anything to make that weapon less harmful to our economy and population.”

    “C’mon in, Chinese, feel free to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, we’ll throw open the door and stay out of your way.”

    And just think, they consider themselves to be the true patriots.

  75. 75.

    Mike in NC

    Why are whacko anti-vax demonstrators in Australia waving Trump banners? (I really don’t care.)

  77. 77.

    J R in WV

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I have a younger bro who is a RWNJ, Life-member of the NRA Trumpist. We know better than to talk politics ever. But he did get vaccinated, down there in TX.

    If I were you, I would pick up a pulse-oxy meter and mail it, or order one sent to his address. They’re really inexpensive. I love mine, it helps me keep an eye on Wife’s O2 levels, which is important as she is missing a lobe of her left lung. No letter, just the gadget.

    Best wishes for you and yours, even if he’s a Trumpy dick~!~

    You take care!!

  81. 81.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    @Eolirin: @Baud: 

    He did kill — 600,000 people. He thought lock downs and masks would damage commerce and therefore the Dow Jones Industrial Average. He stoopidly thought people would tolerate mass graves if it kept Dow up.

    But he was always terrible at quantitative analysis and this time he didn’t have a rich dad or rich dictator to bail him out.

  83. 83.

    Ryan

    “can they justified within liberalism? (yes).”

     

    You’re right to throw a punch ends where it hits my face.  That is the justification.

  84. 84.

    H-Bob

    she believes it is just too much of a coincidence that the pandemic began so close to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV): “In 2019, a novel SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] coronavirus, with a novel genetic modification, appeared in a city where there’s a lab studying novel SARS coronaviruses with novel genetic modifications.”
    Idiot — the lab was established in that city precisely because there previously were other novel SARS coronaviruses with novel genetic modifications that were traced to that region!

  85. 85.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I have mentioned in comments before that my in-laws, like hundreds of thousands of families living in Wuhan or the surrounding plains of eastern Hubei Province, keep a small apartment in a rural part of the Enshi Prefecture as a summer retreat. We have spent the past 2 summers there, though by the time we 1st visited the animal farms would have already been shut down.

    The entire region is covered by limestone formations typical of the Karst landscape, & the formations are porous w/ caves & sink holes, which in turn are presumably full of bats. In fact, a large swath of SW China features Karst landscape, covering most of Guangxi, eastern Yunnan, western Guizhou, western Hubei & southeastern Chongqing, must be hundreds of thousands of sq. kms. The Karst landscape extend into most of Laos & northern Vietnam, as do the corresponding bat populations.

    Even w/ relatively lower population density (by Chinese standards) in these regions, there are villages & townships dotted across the landscape, peasants engaged in animal husbandry near the caves, venturing into the caves to collect bat guano, or storing local liquor in the caves, as they have done for centuries. Farming “wildlife” animals had been an avenue to increase income for the locals, a business that used to be worth > US$ 60B in China. Of course, we had an indication from the original SARS what kind of animals are susceptible to coronaviruses from bats, & we now have ample data from the COVID-19 pandemic. It was & is not a good idea to farm such animals close to bat populations, particularly w/ poor regulation. Understanding what coronaviruses are found in the bats that could potentially pose risk to humans, & which animals may serves as intermediary hosts, had been the focus of studies at WIV w/ extensive international collaboration. Unfortunately, these efforts, the WIV, & even some of their international collaborators, have now been thoroughly demonized.

    Furthermore, even if China shuts downs the “wild life” farming & trade within its borders, & sustain the ban for the long term, the risk to humanity is not really diminished if the practice & trade simply shifts to Laos or other parts of SE Asia.

  86. 86.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Fair Economist: Agree that the focus on lab leak actually distracts from the actual policy failures of the Chinese government. There is such a focus by western governments, academics & media on China opening up the WIV & Wuhan CDC labs to scrutiny, which will always be rather unlikely, & yet minimal attention given to cajoling the Chinese government to share more information of the early cases, as well as surveys done on the wild & farmed animals (I would be surprised if such studies have not been done), which is more difficult for the Chinese government to stonewall on.

    The obsession over the lab leak theory, & not the lack of transparency on data that might shed light on potential natural spillover pathways, also lead people in China to suspect that the accusations from the US (& Australia) in particular are not made in good faith.

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