{"id":94428,"date":"2021-06-10T18:34:48","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T22:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=94428"},"modified":"2021-06-10T18:34:56","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T22:34:56","slug":"the-daily-gouge-archive-monday-june-7th-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=94428","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge Archive, Monday, June 7th, 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Monday, June 7th, 2021…and here are a few thoughts regarding a rather momentous event which occurred 77 years ago yesterday viewed through the lens of contemporary political correctness:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the juice:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Along with many more on numerous other less-renowned landings on sandy shores unaccompanied by the strands of ukulele strumming and the gyrations of grass skirts.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, here’s The Gouge<\/em>!<\/strong><\/p>\n

First up, writing at his Morning Jolt<\/em>, Jim Geraghty offers a must-read<\/em><\/span> commentary on the dogged refusal of the ChiCom lobby to recognize reality, as he notes…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even Now, the Usual Suspects Demand We \u2018Cooperate with China<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Over in the\u00a0Los Angeles Times, Michael Hiltzik<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0writes an entire column arguing that the lab-leak theory is \u201cgarbage,\u201d and the first piece of evidence he cites is a research paper in\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0from February 2020.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, has anything<\/em><\/span> happened since February 2020<\/em><\/span> that might<\/em><\/span> alter one\u2019s perspective on the probable cause of this pandemic? Anything at all<\/span><\/em>?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hiltzik writes:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s an argument for getting more accountability out of China about its handling of the viral outbreak in its earliest stages. But there\u2019s also an argument against pointing fingers at the Chinese regime or its scientific establishment without evidence<\/span><\/span><\/em>(Andy McCarthy addresses this demonstrably false assertion in the item which follows<\/em>)<\/span><\/span>: China\u2019s cooperation<\/span> will be crucial<\/span> for world health in the future, and it\u2019s less likely to happen<\/span> if China feels it has been unjustly blamed for COVID-19.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe lab-leak hypothesis is taking the oxygen out of what\u2019s really needing to be done, which is cooperating with China,\u201d [Robert F. Garry of Tulane Medical School] told his colleagues on the recent webcast.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFollow the animals,\u201d he said.<\/span> \u201c<\/em>That\u2019s<\/span> where we\u2019re going to find the origin of COVID-19.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First of all, looking at labs researching novel coronaviruses in bats, in some cases collected in the mine that housed the virus most genetically similar to SARS-CoV-2 identified in nature so far,\u00a0IS<\/u><\/em>\u00a0\u201cfollowing the animals.\u201d<\/span> As noted yesterday, Chinese researchers have been attempting to \u201cfollow the animals\u201d to a\u00a0possible wet market or farm for nearly a year and a half<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/span>, and they still<\/em><\/span> haven\u2019t found an infected animal. This is\u00a0not<\/span><\/em> how things shook out with SARS back in 2003<\/a><\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Suspecting a lab leak is not cheerleading for wet markets. Wet markets are dangerously unsanitary, and a potential outbreak threat, and ought to be cleaned up or banned.<\/span> But the existence<\/span><\/em> of wet markets doesn\u2019t<\/em><\/span> rule out the possibility<\/em><\/span> of a lab accident, and the potential<\/em><\/span> of lab accidents doesn\u2019t mean that there\u2019s no risk<\/em><\/span> of future infections at wet markets.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCooperate with China?\u201d<\/em><\/span>\u00a0How<\/span><\/em>? This perspective ignores<\/em><\/span> the fact that the Chinese government refuses to cooperate in any significant way with any independent inquiry<\/em><\/span>!\u00a0<\/span>The\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0summarizes today:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The WHO chief, the Biden administration, other governments and scientists around the world have\u00a0rebuked China\u00a0for not making this investigation any easier.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Chinese authorities weren\u2019t much more receptive of the international team commissioned by the WHO. Negotiations over the arrangements delayed the team from getting to Wuhan until more than a year after doctors first raised concerns there.<\/span> Once on the ground, the international experts were given limited access. They visited the market linked to early coronavirus cases \u2014 but it had been shut for a year and its contents long ago removed. Their visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology lasted three hours.<\/span> In general, they had to satisfy themselves with data that was in large part collected by Chinese scientists before the trip<\/span>…<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

…Wuhan\u2019s two rival teams of exotic bat disease specialists are now under renewed scrutiny.<\/span> Tian\u2019s team at the Wuhan CDC and Shi Zhengli\u2019s at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) have both drawn criticism for a willingness to compromise safety<\/span>, as they raced to make discoveries.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Wuhan CDC and WIV did not reply to requests for comment, nor did Tian or Shi.<\/span> An unnamed staffer who answered the phone Tuesday at the Wuhan CDC said the center did not accept interviews and directed questions to the National Health Commission. The NHC did not reply to a request for comment.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

China\u2019s Foreign Ministry and the Chinese Embassy in Washington declined to answer questions for this article.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Look who\u2019s calling for greater transparency from the Chinese government<\/em><\/a><\/span> <\/span>in the pages of the\u00a0Financial Times<\/em>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Joe Biden\u2019s chief medical adviser has called on China to release the medical records of nine people whose illnesses might provide vital clues into whether Covid-19 first emerged as the result of a lab leak.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, told the Financial Times that the records could help resolve the debate over the origins of a disease that has killed more than 3.5m people worldwide.<\/span> The records in question concern three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who reportedly became sick in November 2019, and six miners who fell ill after entering a bat cave in 2012. Scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology subsequently visited the cave to take samples from the bats.<\/span> Three of the miners died.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to see the medical records of the three people who are reported to have got sick in 2019,\u201d Fauci said.<\/span> \u201cDid they really get sick, and if so, what did they get sick with? \u201cThe same with the miners who got ill years ago…What do the medical records of those people say?<\/span> Was there [a] virus in those people? What was it?<\/span> It is entirely conceivable that the origins of Sars-Cov-2 was in that cave and either started spreading naturally or went through the lab.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those are all good questions.<\/span> In fact, those seem like good questions that should<\/span><\/em> have been asked\u00a0before<\/em><\/span>\u00a0the U.S. National Institutes of Health started sending grant money to EcoHealth Alliance to pass along to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for gain-of-function research on coronaviruses found in bats<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll put it to you<\/em><\/span>, dear reader: What<\/em><\/span> do you think it means that China won\u2019t share any<\/em><\/span> of that information?<\/span> Why<\/span><\/em> did Chinese authorities refuse to share<\/span><\/em> \u201craw patient data on 174 cases that China had identified from the early phase of the outbreak<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u201d when the WHO team visited? Why<\/em><\/span> did the Wuhan Institute of Virology suddenly\u00a0cease public access to its database of records of some 22,000 samples and some of their genetic sequences<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>?<\/span> Why<\/span><\/em> did a second database of virus records, run by China\u2019s National Virus Resource Center, also<\/em><\/span> suddenly become restricted? Why<\/em><\/span> do you think that in April 2020, the\u00a0Chinese government decreed<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>that any<\/span><\/em> academic papers dealing with the origins of the virus be approved by China\u2019s Ministry of Science and Technology before publication?<\/span> Why<\/em><\/span> did Xiaobo Tao, a scholar from South China University of Technology,\u00a0publish a paper theorizing that COVID-19 originated from bats being used for research at either one of the two research laboratories in Wuhan on February 6, 2020<\/em><\/span>,<\/a>\u00a0and then withdraw it<\/em><\/span> days later, with a vague explanation that he no longer believed it<\/span><\/em>?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

What<\/span><\/em> do some folks need to see<\/em><\/span> before they conclude, \u201cYeah, this looks like Chinese government is trying to hide something<\/em><\/span>\u201d?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The argument in Hiltzik\u2019s column amounts to, \u201cWE need to cooperate more<\/em><\/span> with those people who are refusing to cooperate with the investigation in any way<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Follow the money, people, follow the money.\u00a0 It’s goes straight from Beijing into the pockets of anyone and everyone doing business with and\/or defending the tyrannical Socialist utopia which is the PRC.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a related item we referenced earlier, NRO<\/em>‘s Andy McCarthy offers the facts regarding the mountain of evidence to support the Wuhan virus as having originated in a ChiCom lab:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Lab-Leak Theory: Evidence Beyond a Reasonable Doubt<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

Every good prosecutor will tell you that the best case is a strong circumstantial case \u2014 and that\u2019s exactly what we have<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“\u2018O<\/strong><\/span><\/span>f\u00a0<\/span>course, it\u2019s only circumstantial evidence. We may never know the truth.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

If I\u2019ve heard this once, over more decades than I care to admit, I\u2019ve heard it a thousand times. It is the rote dismissal of circumstantially based cases, and it is almost always wrong.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We can no longer afford to be wrong when it comes to\u00a0the origin<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0\u2014 the\u00a0generation<\/em><\/span>\u00a0by regime-controlled Chinese scientists<\/em><\/span>, almost certainly by accident (an assertion with which we happen to disagree<\/em>)<\/span> \u2014 of a pandemic that has caused nearly 4 million deaths globally (now closing in on 600,000 in the U.S.), in addition to geometrically more instances of serious illness,\u00a0trillions<\/em><\/span>\u00a0of dollars\u2019 worth of economic destruction, and incalculable setbacks in the educational and social development of tens of millions of children.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

…<\/span>Apodictic knowledge eludes us.<\/span> That\u2019s the human condition. Whether we are in the position of relying on circumstantial evidence, direct evidence, or some combination of the two, we are forever at a deficit.<\/span> Our knowledge is imperfect and our premises may be flawed (and constantly reminding oneself of that is what separates good intelligence analysts from bad ones). Notice that in the criminal justice system, where we apply the most exacting evidentiary standards, the requirement is proof\u00a0beyond a reasonable doubt<\/em><\/span>, not<\/span><\/em> proof\u00a0beyond all possible doubt<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There is<\/span><\/em> no proof beyond all<\/span><\/em> possible doubt.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

What NR\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0Jim Geraghty<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0has chronicled for months is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the coronavirus pandemic was generated by an accident \u2014 a lab leak, a not-uncommon mishap in medical research conducted by fallible human beings \u2014 at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.<\/span> Ditto the important work of\u00a0Nicholas Wade<\/a><\/em><\/span>,\u00a0Vanity Fair\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0Katherine Eban<\/a><\/em><\/span>, our own\u00a0Michael Brendan Dougherty<\/a><\/em><\/span>, and a few intrepid others.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Lab accidents are common, and have been known to spawn infectious diseases (including the escape of SARS1 from the Chinese National Virology Institute in Beijing \u201cno less than four times<\/em><\/span>,\u201d according to Wade).<\/span> WIV scientists were conducting gain-of-function research on bat-based coronaviruses, in particular their capacity to infect humans<\/span><\/em>. The bats in which are found closely related (but, importantly, not identical) viruses do not inhabit the vicinity of Wuhan<\/em><\/span> \u2014 they are nearly a thousand miles away<\/em><\/span> from that densely populated city and have limited flight range<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> The likelihood<\/em><\/span> of naturally occurring<\/em><\/span> interspecies transmission (outside a lab setting) is infinitesimal<\/span><\/em>. The lab conditions in Wuhan were insufficiently safe<\/em><\/span> \u2014 grossly so, it appears<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> Several of the lab\u2019s researchers fell ill (at least three<\/em><\/span> severely enough to be hospitalized) right at the critical time<\/em><\/span>, in autumn of 2019, before the first identified case of infection with SARS-CoV2<\/em><\/span>, the virus that causes COVID-19.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Here, two additional points are salient.<\/span> First, those implausibly claiming that the circumstantial case is weak always skip past the inconvenient fact that the circumstantial case for their preferred theory of natural transmission<\/em><\/span> (from bat to human, directly or through an intermediary species) is so weak as to be negligible<\/em><\/span> \u2014 there being, most tellingly, no known existence of a bat<\/em><\/span> (or pangolin, etc.) in which a virus matching SARS-CoV2 has been found<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Second, we are not in a U.S. prosecution.<\/span> The presumption of innocence that obtains in U.S. criminal trials does not apply in other contexts<\/em><\/span>, and China is not entitled to it<\/em><\/span>. Nor is China vested with the privilege against self-incrimination.<\/span> We are fully within our rights to conclude<\/em><\/span> that the monstrous<\/em><\/span> regime in Beijing is not an innocent actor<\/em><\/span>, and that it has sealed records, silenced witnesses, and hidden evidence<\/em><\/span> because it knows<\/em><\/span> both that SARS-CoV2 was<\/em><\/span> generated by an accident in one of its labs and that its sundry deceits in concealing<\/em><\/span> this fact undermined any possibility of containing the damage<\/em><\/span> \u2014 to catastrophic effect<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On the same rationale, we can justifiably infer that American officials who zealously maligned sensible, informed efforts to investigate the lab-leak theory were motivated not by some adherence to science<\/em><\/span> but by the awareness that the U.S. government knew about<\/em><\/span> and was supportive of<\/em><\/span> China\u2019s virological research.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

China and its abettors have much<\/em><\/span> to account for. Unless and until China comes forward with convincing evidence that the lab-leak theory is wrong, the position of the United States and the world must<\/em><\/span> be that\u00a0China is culpable<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> We should stop spouting the untenable and irresponsible drivel that, because the case is \u201ccircumstantial,\u201d the truth may never be known. We know plenty<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong>“<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As our old friend Tod Hirt, who flew in the S-3 Viking sub hunters used to say, “Knowing where a submarine isn’t<\/em><\/span> is almost<\/span><\/em> as good as knowing where it is<\/span><\/em>.”\u00a0 Here, however, there’s not even a scintilla<\/em><\/span> of doubt: when it comes to the collective responsibility of Xi Jinping, the CCP and certain parties in America’s dysfunctional federal bureaucracy for the release of the Wuhan virus upon the world…<\/strong><\/p>\n