The #OriginOfCovid saga has shown that some scientists have their priorities all messed up.
Early 2020, prominent scientists condemned the lab origin hypothesis as a conspiracy theory & some claimed they knew this virus was not genetically modified. Mostly everyone fell in line.
Later, the China-World Health Organization joint expert panel said this virus could've emerged in Wuhan from frozen meat #PopsicleOrigins
Instead of calling out the China-WHO joint study, several evolutionary biologists and virologists jumped in to support this hypothesis.
Over the past year and a half, we've seen time and again that scientists from the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology were withholding key information about the origin of some of the closest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 and experiments done in the lab...
“Authoritative, meticulously researched, critically reasoned, chilling… The authors hold back nothing in evaluating the countless research papers, news reports, eyewitness reports and historically significant events.”
“I've been following Alina on Twitter for the past many months of the virus. I'm not sure how she found her way to Matt Ridley, but I'm glad she did. The combination is powerful, and the story is mesmerizing.”
This is like trying to guess the shape of an iceberg when you can only see what's above the surface.
Where are the November case data? We know that by December there had been a superspreader event at the seafood market and cases numbered in the hundreds. nytimes.com/2021/11/18/hea…
How is it possible that basic contact tracing wasn't done?
China showed us again and again throughout the pandemic how fast and effectively they could contact trace the h*ll out of any new Covid-19 case. Most recently locking down an entire Disneyland.
The @WHO spokesperson even said the errors in the China-WHO joint report on #OriginOfCovid were not important because “the current first known patient is most probably not the first case.” washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac…
To the folks saying (or hoping) “don’t worry, I’m sure labs around the world are conducting research more safely now.”
Where is the evidence of this happening? How do we know that people approving and conducting risky experiments have turned over a new leaf?
See this letter to Congress by dozens of US scientific orgs:
“We urge you to reject attempts to impose restrictions on federally funded research or the operations of federal science agencies based on premature conclusions about how the pandemic emerged.”
We @mattwridley would not be surprised if this book makes us unwelcome in some countries.
Our book lays bare the type of pathogen research that was ongoing prior to the pandemic, the frequency and risks of lab leaks, and a case for both natural and lab #OriginOfCovid scenarios.
Rescuing the lab origin hypothesis from being condemned by experts as a conspiracy theory demanded the ingenuity and determination of numerous scientists, journalists and sleuths whose stories are described in our book.