The Wuhan Coincidence: One Simple Point
The Wuhan Virus Coincidence: One Simple Point
Dear Readers,
I’ve decided to put a limited number of forthcoming essays in a new format that I’ll call: “One Simple Point.” While many issues of the day are complicated problems requiring multifaceted analysis, some issues need a more focused approach. The following is my first essay in this format:
The Wuhan Virus Coincidence: One Simple Point
The culpability of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the origin of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic continues to be an issue of some controversy in the American media. It SHOULDN’T be. In order for us to believe that the Wuhan laboratory was NOT at fault in the creation of this plague, one would have to believe that the presence of the deadly corona virus pandemic in a location just 3 miles from a level four virology lab that was known to be EXPERIMENTING WITH THE VIRUS was just one GIGANTIC COINCIDENCE. Any individual with a half way alert mind, I would posit, should find such a tenuous theory EXTREMELY SUSPICIOUS, to say the least.
Now, there’s no question that coincidences do occur and do not always imply causality. As Kathiann Kowalski noted in Science News For Students, “Between 2000 and 2009, the more mozzarella that Americans downed, the more doctorates in civil engineering that U.S. universities awarded… The two showed a strong correlation.” No one, however, would accept that there’s a causal relationship between the two.
A key to understanding such a non causal correlation is the realization that: 1) BOTH mozzarella consumption and engineering degree diplomas are relatively common occurrences. 2) There is no known mechanism of interaction between them. These two factors make it quite easy for us to chalk such a correlation up to coincidence.
This is NOT the situation we have with COVID-19. NEITHER viral pandemics nor level four virology labs are common. Although it’s hard to appreciate the rarity of viral pandemics with so many people currently dying across so much of the globe, the actual frequency of such scourges is still about a half dozen per century. So too with level four virology labs. There are only 69 such labs in the entire world and the Wuhan Lab is THE ONLY SUCH LAB IN ALL OF CHINA. Next, unlike the mozzarella/engineering correlation, there IS a straightforward mechanism of interaction between a corona virus pandemic and a virology lab which was KNOWN TO BE EXPERIMENTING with corona viruses. While it would would be quite a stretch to imagine mozzarella causing a rise in engineering degrees, it is NOT a stretch to suspect that a coronavirus research lab might have something to do with a coronavirus outbreak IN THE SAME LOCATION AT THE SAME POINT IN TIME.
Over the past couple of weeks, the evidence for the Wuhan Lab’s culpability continues to steadily mount. An international intelligence co-operative between the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada now believes the virus escaped from the Wuhan Lab. A dossier from this group was recently leaked to the New South Wales (Australia) press where it was reported as a headline as follows: Corona Virus NSW: Dossier Lays Out Case Against China Bat Virus Program (source: The Daily Telegraph, May 4, 2020, dailytelegraph.com.au). Secretary of State Pompeo said yesterday that “enormous evidence” connects virus to the Wuhan lab. The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is also deeply investigating this as well.
But, whether the Wuhan Lab can be proven to be at fault is immaterial to my argument here. Whether or not the Wuhan lab is the culprit, suspicions should have IMMEDIATELY been aroused just as soon as it was known that there was a corona virus lab IN WUHAN. The world’s media became aware that there was such a lab in Wuhan at least as early as January 23, 2020 when it was a headline in the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail (source: www.dailymail.co.uk).
Once it was clear that there was a corona virus lab in Wuhan, the US media SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALL OVER THIS. Even a report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, on Jan 26, 2020 that concluded the virus DID NOT COME FROM THE MARKET, made no mention of the Wuhan Lab (source: www.sciencemag.org) The first American reference to the existence of the virology lab in Wuhan that I could find was by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark) on Feb 17, 2020. So, at least at THAT POINT, the US media SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALL OVER IT. So, were they?… No, not at all. That bastion of non partisan intellectual acuity, The New York Times, referred to Mr. Cotton’s suspicions as a “fringe theory”! Most other major American media sources were similarly dismissive. The few sources that bothered to even MENTION it, trotted out a few skeptical scientists whom, they said, “thoroughly debunked” the theory, while ignoring a number of respected scientists who said quite the opposite. American media, apparently, just couldn’t find the perspicacity to “connect the dots.”
So, whether or not further investigation will ultimately prove or disprove the Wuhan Lab’s guilt (as I think it will), the American media and all alert American observers should have, on a logical basis alone, shown an extreme level of suspicion directed at the Wuhan lab. Ashamedly, they did not.
My one simple point: AMERICA’S MEDIA HAS LOST ITS CAPACITY FOR CRITICAL THINKING.