121
submitted 7 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

The Chinese government froze meaningful efforts to trace the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, despite publicly declaring it supported an open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The AP drew on thousands of pages of undisclosed emails and documents, leaked recordings, and dozens of interviews that showed the freeze began far earlier than previously known — in the first weeks of the outbreak — and involved political and scientific infighting in China as much as international finger-pointing.

Crucial initial efforts were hindered by bureaucrats in Wuhan trying to avoid blame who misled the central government; the central government, which silenced Chinese scientists and subjected visiting U.N. officials to stage-managed tours; and the World Health Organization itself, which may have compromised early opportunities to gather critical information, according to internal materials obtained by AP.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

They're being downvoted because it's conspiracy nonsense. The lab in question was funded by the US because it was part of joint pandemic preparedness studies, and its location was near Wuhan because it was a likely place for an outbreak to occur. They studied the coronavirus because scientists have been warning us for a long time that a coronavirus strain crossing species and becoming a global pandemic is an inevitability.

Could COVID be from a lab leak? Sure, it's possible. But it would almost certainly have been accidental, not some grand conspiracy to kill millions and devastate the global economy they rely on. The more obvious culprit is the wet markets nearby where animals and their carcasses are handled by the public, providing ample opportunity for a mutated virus to infect an unlucky someone. China cracking down on an investigation is unsurprising if you know anything about their government. It's just China being China.

this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
121 points (95.5% liked)

News

23413 readers
1719 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS