The blockbuster claim is, "The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses." But ...
https://twitter.com/ClaireBerlinski/status/1350481953665986563
The phrasing is weird. The US government has reason to believe that several researchers exhibited symptoms in August 2019 consistent *both* with Covid19 and "common seasonal illnesses." Does this mean they have reason to believe researchers had a cold?
It's not a blockbuster claim unless there's special reason to think these were Covid19 symptoms. People used to get colds all the time--before we all went into lockdown and began compulsively sanitizing ourselves.
Is this just the standard inability of anyone in the US government to write even one clear English sentence? This is State, which is usually known for literacy, but it's post-Trump State--all the people who can spell and punctuate have been driven out.
So is that ambiguity deliberate? Are they actually making a blockbuster claim, or are they suggesting they've found out some researchers had a runny nose?
Might this represent one last effort by Pompeo to divert attention from the Trump Administration's absolute and catastrophic failure in pretty much every dimension, including leaving behind nearly 1/800 Americans dead?
Certainly, they know by now a report like this will be picked up by lots of Americans who are not good at reading nuance and very prone to conspiratorial thinking. Is that the object?
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