Thread by @Ayjchan

Really good piece in ⁦@NBCNews⁩ by ⁦@KenDilanianNBC⁩ et al.

Questions about how large the covid outbreak was in Wuhan, how early it could’ve started, maybe even Sep 2019 if there were already dozens of unconnected cases in October.. nbcnews.com/health/health-…

Extremely challenging to answer these questions without access to thousands of banked patient samples from Wuhan from fall 2019, and the actual non-aggregated patient records from that time. Not just the 90+ shortlist but thousands of people with pneumonia in Wuhan fall 2019.

Office of Director of National Intelligence: agency "will continue to rigorously examine emerging information.. to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan" nbcnews.com/health/health-…

According to the Mail on Sunday,
Matt Pottinger, the Deputy National Security Adviser who resigned in response to the insurrection, said "There is a growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus."

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9…

The story about intelligence is complicated by the facts sheet by the previous State Dept, which was described as "less than rock solid" although there is substantial & significant intelligence, raising enough circumstantial questions such that #laborigins are still on the table.

Nonetheless, it is safe to say that #laborigins are plausible and not a conspiracy theory if several top experts, US intelligence, and 2 US administrations think that lab origins remain to be investigated - regardless of what the WHO-coordinated team has said and then unsaid.