Report: UK Gov't Confirms COVID May Have Leaked from Wuhan Lab After Left Smears It as Conspiracy
It seems that even before the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States, establishment media outlets were falling all over themselves to exonerate China from any responsibility for causing the worldwide outbreak.
Despite journalistic investigations that have shown China covered up so much of what was happening, any whiff of blame for the communist country was smacked down as xenophobic.
The fact is, however, it now appears China was not only responsible for mismanaging the novel coronavirus outbreak it from the start, but the virus now spreading death and misery around the world may also have leaked from one of the country’s virology labs.
Previously, this theory had been dismissed as a conspiracy, with the liberal media excoriating anyone brave enough to talk about it.
However, according to a U.K. Daily Mail report on Saturday, British government sources have confirmed that while the prevailing consensus that the virus spread from live animal markets in Wuhan is still the leading theory, “a leak from a laboratory in the Chinese city is ‘no longer being discounted.'”
The publication claimed its source was a senior government official and member of the government’s crisis response group known as “COBRA” (an acronym that stands for “Cabinet Office Briefing Room A”).
“The member of Cobra, which receives detailed classified briefings from the security services, said: ‘There is a credible alternative view [to the zoonotic theory] based on the nature of the virus,'” the Daily Mail reported. “‘Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted.'”
The article noted that Wuhan is the site of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, “the most advanced laboratory of its type on the Chinese mainland.”
One American politician who was out in front of the theory was Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton. His Twitter feed from as far back as January now makes him appear as a soothsayer as it turns out that warnings about the human-to-human transmission of the virus and its potential to become a pandemic have now been realized.
Cotton was also one of the early officials to publicly speculate on the possibility that the pathogen escaped from a Chinese lab.
The Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, within the institute of virology, is deemed a “biosafety level 4” lab — an official designation for laboratories that “investigate the most dangerous pathogens and have the maximum biocontainment levels.”
In a Jan. 30 Twitter post, Cotton pointed that out.
“We still don’t know where coronavirus originated. Could have been a market, a farm, a food processing company,” he wrote. “I would note that Wuhan has China’s only biosafety level-four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus.”
We still don’t know where coronavirus originated. Could have been a market, a farm, a food processing company.
I would note that Wuhan has China’s only biosafety level-four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/CtuU2czBLp
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 30, 2020
Cotton took plenty of media heat for this logical, objective theory. On Feb. 9, CNN’s “Face the Nation” took the opportunity to snipe at him for it — in an interview with Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the United States. (No better source for truth about the Chinese government, right?)
The program’s account tweeted the clip as: “NEW: @AmbCuiTiankai dismisses #coronavirus conspiracy theories pushed by @SenTomCotton that it’s being used as biological warfare as ‘absolutely crazy.'”
NEW: @AmbCuiTiankai dismisses #coronavirus conspiracy theories pushed by @SenTomCotton that it’s being used as biological warfare as “absolutely crazy.” WATCH –> pic.twitter.com/26D4r67Kj9
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) February 9, 2020
It’s important to note, as National Review’s A.G. Hamilton did on Friday, in a piece titled “The Media Owe Senator Tom Cotton an Apology,” that Cotton never argued that the coronavirus was manmade or that it had been intended as a biological weapon, only that the lab might have had a role — accidental or otherwise — in the virus spreading to humans.
The Washington Post also mischaracterized Cotton’s statement as a “fringe theory” in a Feb. 16 hit piece.
The Post’s tweet of the story reads, “Sen. Tom Cotton fans the embers of a coronavirus conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts.”
Sen. Tom Cotton fans the embers of a coronavirus conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts https://t.co/z0Mr4KmiOu
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 16, 2020
However, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz also shared Cotton’s theory as he tweeted a clip of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in his report making the case for a lab slip-up.
WATCH: @TuckerCarlson raises serious Qs. Why are NYT, WaPo, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN not reporting on this? Are their corporate bosses more worried about big $$ & access to Chinese markets? A global pandemic originates just miles from TWO labs actively researching bat coronaviruses?!? https://t.co/ZdnGOYuZC6
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 1, 2020
Interestingly, the study Carlson quoted subsequently vanished.
An opinion piece published by USA Today had choice words for Carlson with the headline: “Coronavirus: How Fox News and other right-wing media endanger our health.”
That piece also called out other conservative media such as “The Daily Wire, The Federalist, Steve Bannon and Rush Limbaugh” for reporting the theory that the virus might have escaped a lab.
While the mainstream media try to make this sound off-the-wall, it wouldn’t be the first time such an incident occurred.
Back in 2004, the coronavirus that causes the potentially deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome — better known as SARS — escaped on two separate occasions from a Beijing laboratory, according to The Scientist magazine, therefore this is not unprecedented.
Also noteworthy is that the Chinese government moved to ram through new biosafety regulations following the coronavirus outbreak in the country, according to the South China Morning Post.
In fact, it was mentioned in that same report that Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with the country’s top brass about the need for such measures in a Feb, 14 meeting. An attorney at the Shanghai Zao Hongsheng law firm, one of China’s largest, cryptically said that coronavirus “has caused catastrophic results and has become a trigger to speed up the process of biosecurity law legislation.”
The left-wing media are attempting to blame every American coronavirus death on the supposed failures of President Donald Trump while simultaneously doing mental gymnastics to avoid assigning any responsibility to the Chinese governments or its possibly negligent laboratory.
What is now emerging as a very realistic possibility was initially called a “conspiracy theory” and summarily dismissed. As usual, the leftists had it all wrong.
Instead of trying to investigate and report on the news that the American people need to know, they opened their tired, worn-out playbook and commenced with the ad hominem attacks on conservatives.
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