The “Lab Leak Theory” Is Still Nonsensical

At this point last year, the idea that COVID-19 originated from a lab in China was some conspiracy-theory nonsense. While we were never sure of the origins — although the Wuhan wet-markets did seem like a solid candidate — we knew from the start that it was likely a mutation and not some intentional conspiracy on the part of China.

Now, never call me one to believe what’s written on Townhall.com — a conservative “news” website that publishes columns from just about every right-wing columnist in existence — but they are right on one thing, they were saying this before the mainstream media was. Here’s Townhall in their article “The Truth About The China Virus Wuhan Lab Leak” published on 5/26/2021:

While Townhall reported on those questioning the lies coming from the Chinese communist government and the scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology about the coronavirus leaking from a lab, the left-wing media, Democrats, and Dr. Fauci bought into the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda and anyone asking questions about a potential lab leak was labeled a conspiracy theorist.

Now, the Left and the Democrat Media Complex are changing their tune, saying that the lab leak theory has some credibility, but we were reporting the facts and real news first.

Townhall is right, if one looks at the mainstream media over the past week or so, their coverage of this idea is much closer to what Townhall once told us than it was before. Even Anthony Fauci, who said this time last year that their was no evidence COVID-19 was made in a laboratory in Wuhan, said earlier this month he was “not convinced” COVID-19 was created naturally.

If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species. — Anthony Fauci, May 2020

I am not convinced [COVID-19 came from bats]. I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened. — Anthony Fauci, May 2021

And, of course, Townhall is running its victory lap. Column after column is being published on that website saying that, actually, they were right all along and the silly liberal media is now just repeating what they told us. It would be much less angering if it wasn’t half-true — they weren’t right, but the media is now treating this nonsense like is has some legitimacy.

Now, all of this would be understandable on the condition that new evidence has since come forward proving that COVID-19 was made in a laboratory — but it has not. All we have is some here say and conjecture (which, despite what Lionel Hutz will tell you, are not “kinds of evidence”) from people who claim to have worked in the Wuhan lab where COVID-19 was created. Of course, for these stories to be true, you must first accept the notion that COVID-19 was created in a laboratory — which I do not.

Here are some basic questions, that I just thought of off the top of my head, to the people who believe the “lab leak theory”:

1. Why would China unleash a virus that killed roughly 4,636 of its own people?
2. Why would China, the greatest player in the global economy, unleash a virus that shut-down the global economy?
3. Why would China, while facing heightened tensions with the United States because of the trade war started by former President Donald Trump, release a virus that caused many millions of people to turn against China locally and which killed 594,000 Americans — or roughly the entire state of Wyoming and then some?
4. Why would China, while facing more backlash and hatred than ever as a result of their imperialist actions in Hong Kong, unleash an illness that would do nothing but cause the international community to even further turn against them?
5. How far up does this plot go? Was Chinese President Xi Jinping involved with this plot? How about then-Mayor of Wuhan Zhou Xianwang?

This is all running under the assumption that China intentionally released the virus, which many are claiming. Still, the idea that it accidentally jumped from the Wuhan lab to bats is another common one. Although this does have some historical precedents, AIDS came to the United States as a result of the use of Monkey Kidneys for the development of the Polio Vaccine, there is still rather little evidence for this claim as well.

It is commonly pointed out that the Wuhan Institute Of Virology is located in — well, Wuhan, China. However, that Institute has existed in Wuhan, China since 1956 with no leaks at any point in its history. All the evidence that this lab had COVID-19 come down to mentions that they had other strains of coronavirus — which ignores the fact that many other illnesses, including the common cold, are strains of coronavirus.

Let’s cut to the chase, the reason why American politicians are so focused on blaming China for COVID-19 is because they do want to admit fault for the outbreak of the virus. As I type this, thirty-three million people — ten percent of the American population, have caught COVID-19. Meanwhile, China had 91,061 cases out of 1.398 billion people — or 0.0065% of the Chinese population. Americans saw China celebrate their New Years with a massive party, while many of them were still stuck at home because Trump had failed them so badly.

Of course, they are not allowed to say that they are the reason why this happened. So, instead, they have no choice but to blame it on everyone besides them under the sun. Trump blamed China and, later on, the World Health Organization for COVID-19, because he refused to admit he had any involvement in the virus spreading as far as it did. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo infamously blamed his nursing home scandal on his inability to know if the specific strain of the virus came from China or Europe, and then went on to blame Donald Trump (and people “playing politics,” despite him being in politics for almost thirty years). And there are many more cases of local politicians blaming the deaths of thousands of their viruses on anyone but themselves.

To put it simply, it does not matter where exactly COVID-19 came from. What matters is that it has killed almost 600,000 Americans. Even if the virus was created in a lab in Wuhan, that wouldn’t change the fact that the US had 180.95 deaths from COVID-19 per 100,000 while China had 0.33. This was not the fault of China, it was the fault of politicians in the United States who are now trying to point their fingers at everyone they can except for themselves.

Of all the politicians trying to take advantage of COIVD-19 for political gains, Donald Trump was easily the worst. This is the same man who declared a Trade War with China in January 2018, after spending thirty-years warning about our rising trade-deficits and declaring that we should stop trading with them. The Trade War was always unpopular, especially among small businesses, and every economist who looked into it found that it was harming the United States much worse than it was harming China. However, that did not stop Donald Trump, who continued to push his religion of nationalism onto the American citizens who had no interest in fighting his war.

While the Trade War nearly ended in January 2020, the existence of COVID-19 had put a stop to any chance of it going away. Mind you, that alone is more evidence of a conspiracy at the hands of Donald Trump than any of the lab leak people have for it being the fault of China, but we are all supposed to simply ignore that because China is the new bad guy.

When COVID-19 first started, we heard all this talk about “shifting the medical supply chain” away from China, which was Newspeak for “limiting the amount of medicine in the United States during the time of a pandemic.” While none of these attempts got anywhere, it was clear anti-China politicians were going to use COVID-19 to their advantage. Any deaths resulting from COVID-19 quickly became the fault of China, and anyone saying otherwise is nothing more than a communist. Seriously, that is what Senator Tom Cotton said back in April 2020:

Since January I’ve said it seems to be highly coincidental that this very contagious virus originated just a few hundred yards or maybe couple miles from laboratories where the Chinese Communist Party researches coronavirus. Bret Baier’s reporting tonight, if it bears out, shows that the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for every single death, every job lost, every retirement nest egg lost from this coronavirus and Xi Jinping and his communist party apparatus must be made to pay the price if that turns out to be true.

Of course, this runs under the assumption that Bret Baier reports the truth (he does not). But of course Fox News, a network that has been called “Trump TV” due to its love of the President, would be the first people to push the idea that COVID-19 was not the fault of Trump. It’s the same reason this was promoted by InfoWars, One America News, Newsmax, Townhall, and literally every single other right-wing rag in the United States of America. (Although One America News once argued it was created in a lab right here in the United States — you can guess why that theory was never followed up on.)

Although, here’s the odd thing; Donald Trump constantly cut funding to the CDC, specifically to its pandemic response team. In April 2020 — literally during the apex COVID-19 pandemic — Donald Trump pulled funding to department researching Coronaviruses in relations to bats. Now, we’re being told that there’s no evidence that COVID-19 is related to bats — maybe because Trump did everything possible to cut the funding to research that would provide those evidence. (Remember, what they don’t fund is something just as important as what they do fund.)

So whenever you hear a politician go on about COVID-19’s origins ask this, “why does it matter?” If you had a friend or family member die of COVID-19, does it actually matter to you if it was the result of wet-markets or a lab? Or is this just another attempt by politicians to shift the blame from themselves to anyone but them?