The Chinese government froze meaningful efforts to trace COVID-19's origins, despite publicly declaring support for an open scientific inquiry, an AP investigation finds.

The hunt for the origins of COVID-19 has gone dark in China, the victim of political infighting after a series of stalled and thwarted attempts to find the source of the virus that killed millions and paralyzed the world for months.

The Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus from the first weeks of the outbreak, despite statements supporting open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation found. That pattern continues to this day, with labs closed, collaborations shattered, foreign scientists forced out and Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country.

The investigation drew on thousands of pages of undisclosed emails and documents and dozens of interviews that showed the freeze began far earlier than previously known and involved political and scientific infighting in China as much as international finger-pointing.

  • Kedly@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    6 months ago

    “Yeah, they were kinda possibly putting forward a plausible theory here. But their goal wasn’t to even do that. It was to sow distrust,”

    There is no they. The internet is visited by damn near the entire planet daily. There isnt one person or group of people responsible for all theories. And not all theories are alike. Where there bad faith actors trying to sow discord? Damn right there were. Where there conspiracy inclined people who believe in a cabal of lizard people ruling the world from the shadows. Definitely where. Where they the only people posing questions and possible answers as to what happened to start a global pandemic that quarantined the world for 2+ years? Hell no they werent. Stop lumping all theories together, thats like comparing apples and mountain lions because they are both comprised of atoms. Each theory should be looked at on its own merit, and once again, Coronavirus laboratory near ground zero, and wet markets near same, which have been a known threat for disease to jump from animals to humans for a while before the pandemic, where both theories that held ground on their own merit.

    • TheFriar@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      But the conspiracy community and the collection of theories they’ve put out since, like, 2002, have been almost universally way off the mark. Like I said, maybe there are other places where serious people put forth serious theories based on more than just vibes and super questionable motives, but I’ve never found one.

      There has been a serious lurch to the right since about 2007 in the conspiracy-verse. So it’s all based on racism and…well, mostly just that. Some xenophobia too. My point is, I can’t think of one other conspiracy I’ve heard since or before that had even a shred of credibility to it.

      Being skeptical and being a conspiracy theorist are not the same thing. I’m skeptical. Incredibly skeptical. But skepticism leads to critical thinking, which the conspiracy theorists lack. They have an answer and work backwards. Almost always. “China is responsible…so…oh look, there was a lab right there! See, it was a conspiracy all along!” That isn’t the same thing as the scientists/virologists tracing an infection back to its source and concluding that it’s entirely plausible there was a lab leak.

      Can you think of another conspiracy theory since 2001 that came close to the mark? I can think of plenty of skeptic fare that did: social media being used to create elaborate profiles on us, cell phones/smart devices being used to spy on us, advertising manipulating us…these are not conspiracy theories. But they’re all true. They’re examples of healthy skepticism that help us lead our lives away from unwanted control, mostly by major corporations.

      Conspiracy theories are sovcits, 9/11 was an inside job, sandy hook, false flag, the government is going to put us all in fema camps, the vaccine will kill us all in 2 years, blah blah blah.

      This is obviously an oversimplification and the line gets blurred somewhere in the middle where skepticism is based on almost nothing, yet is firmly held. That is where you start getting into conspiracy land. When you start creating reasoning to build a story around your skepticism is where the problem arise. Maybe that’s where we’re butting up against each other.

      • Kedly@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        I think you are waaaaayyyy too focussed on what the conspiracy nuts think. I cant tell you when the conspiracy theorists were right because I dont listen to them. Once again, I saw China being insanely tight lipped against what happened at/with the start of Covid, and saw two theories, from no specific source, point to either wet markets and bats/pengolins, or a high level biohazard lab that was near ground zero, which on further read seemed to be specifically studying Coronavirus’s, and those two theories got marked a plausible, based solely on their merit

        Edit: Y’know what tho? I reread the start of this conversation and it was specifically about Conspiracy Theorists, so I guess I’m the one in the wrong here. You’re right in that the only time they end up being right is in the broken clock sense