zlacker

This very irresponsible reporting, that you don’t see often on Reuters.

People get sick, especially in autumn. And they infect each other. Reporting that some people working at the lab were sick, without any knowledge about kind of sickness is only going to add fuel to the conspiracy theories.

>>justap+(OP)
And what conspiracy theory is that? Are you suggesting that the lab leak is a conspiracy theory? Until it is discredited through contradictory evidence, it is still a plausible theory.

>>justap+(OP)
One of the challenges is that the further we get from the time, the harder it is to determine. We may never know.

I suspect I had COVID-19 in the US late December 2019, but as of yet, the CDC doesn't acknowledge that possibility, and I've had enough exposure since that time that there's no reasonable way to test the hypothesis.

At a certain point, some of the investigations stop being practical to investigate further.

>>justap+(OP)
As a casual observer this seems really relevant, clearly something that could be important down the road as we learn more. It might not be COVID-19, but it’s the kind of transparency I expect out of government.

>>poksta+d
While "conspiracy theory" is often intended to be dismissive of an idea, it does not automatically mean the idea is false. Conspiracy theories occasionally end up being true, or close to the truth.

>>poksta+d
Yes, virology experts like Vincent Racaniello claim it’s bs conspiracy. I’m not virology expert, but trust people who actually know what they’re talking about vs fear mongers.

>>justap+(OP)
To your point, CNN adds an interesting detail which isn't being as widely reported:

The workers at the lab "were tested and there was no evidence found of Covid antibodies."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/politics/us-intelligence-repo...

So theoretically it's possible that three workers at the lab were sick -- and hospitalized -- but with, say the seasonal flu. The original reports from the State Department about this even specified that the workers had been sick with symptoms "consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness."

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-report-of-illnesses-at...

>>justap+(OP)
The article says: ‘"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."’

>... is only going to add fuel to the conspiracy theories.

That's a bad thing only if the conspiracy theory is false. At this point, the theory that the Chinese Communistic Party conspired to cover up a lab leak is not implausible. There are multiple known occurrences of pathogens escaping from laboratories.

>>ocdtre+r
Before you were vaccinated you could have donated blood and they would have tested for antibodies. A possible indication, but not something that would confirm it is if you had a reaction to the first shot. A number of folks I know who had covid had a more serious reaction to the first dose.

>>Milner+T
That’s a pretty important point to leave out. Although given the accuracy of the early antibody tests… it doesn’t rule anything out completely.

>>justap+(OP)
I think "sought hospital care" is the key phrase. If a few people from that lab got sick AND ended up in the hospital... considering this is supposed to be very infectious, then why is that line so hard to draw?

>>kevinm+E
This theory doesn't even involve people conspiring, just an accident occuring. Except I guess if you believe the CCP is conspiring to prevent certain facts related to the early days of COVID's emergence from being known. What an outrageous suggestion that is.

>>Milner+T
>The workers at the lab "were tested and there was no evidence found of Covid antibodies."

Tested by whom and how? If a trustworthy disinterested party positively identified the workers, took their blood samples, and tested them via a procedure with a low false-negative rate, then the test results are meaningful. Otherwise, there is reason for doubt.

>>proc0+21
This is journalist or journalism of our mordern world.

What is "sought hospital care"? To get some Vitamin C or get some serious surgery? (In China people go to hospital more often I guess, as people tend to deal with ailments relying on doctors a lot, rather than letting it go by itself.)

Nothing told.

>>nokcha+e2
Then there is no need to argue anymore, my friend.

>>nokcha+e2
Sure, I'll grant you that there's reason for doubting that the lab workers' tests were authentic. But I guess by that same logic, just trying to be accurate and fair here, there'd also be a reason for doubt -- and also for genuine credibility -- in all three of these scenarios.

1. The testing showing no Covid-19 antibodies was fraudulent and faked.

2. That testing was not faked. The workers did not have Covid-19 antibodies; their illness was caused by some other illness.

3. The report of the lab workers' illness is faked. (It came from a conservative newspaper, from unnamed officials citing an unnamed international partner -- where somewhere along that chain, someone had the proper motivation.)

I'm not arguing for any one of these things. We just honestly do not know.

>>qtwhat+y2
I read things with a grain of salt, by the way. It's getting tiresome to disclaim every comment.

Anyway assuming it's at least not a lie, "sought hospital care" would mean it's not just a trivial cold. Again, I'll be waiting for more details, I just think Occam's razor is converging here, and there are more hurdles to dance around with the other explanations.

>>nokcha+V
The communist party has conspired to cover up worse, genocides perpetuated by their dictatorship for example. The people who claim it's an outlandish suggestion they might have covered up a lab leak are uninformed or CCP apologists.

It would not be in the least surprising if this was a lab leak, and it is no more "harmful" to speculate that it was than to speculate that it was a wild virus.

>>brohoo+s
If they were hospitalized with symptoms consistent with COVID - is very relevant, I agree.

But that’s not what this story is about. It’s just about being hospitalized, which means nothing, without any additional data. It’s like running a story that Obama visited Kenya, when birth conspiracy was rampant. It’s something you’d expect from CNN/Foxnews, but not from a reputable journalist organization.

>>justap+C4
It's quoting an American Intelligence Report, which doesn't necessarily make it more credible, but definitely makes it more newsworthy.

>>nokcha+V
> several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019 ... with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses."’

Do you realise that this is very easily true for any company or office at that time of the year?

Does the US government "have reason to believe that several teachers in a high school in Milan became sick in autumn 2015 with symptoms consistent with both Covid and seasonal flu"? Yes, it does! Good job, US government!

>>ocdtre+r
I also suspect this with the same timeline and a large number of my coworkers here in NY had a severe illness at the same time.

I was laid out in bed with the worst upper respiratory infection of my life for most of late December and then again for two more weeks in early January after a brief recovery.

A handful of our coworkers had been in Wuhan in the 3-4 weeks prior.

>>Milner+s3
They were tested back in November for antibodies for something that China won't acknowledge even existed yet and we didn't put a name on for another month or two?

>>ocdtre+r
That would be in line with France's findings of COVID-19 cases from November [1], and Italy finding traces in waste water [2,3].

IIRC, public toilets due to fecal matter were a possible infection vector (I hope I am using the term correctly) [4], which suggests that there had been covid cases since December in Italy as the traces were in waste water [2,3].

Some hypothesise that covid had been circulating in humans long before the market outbreak [5], this hypothesis does seem to corroborate the hypothesis that the virus had long spread before the first 'official' outbreak in Wuhan.

[1] https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20210311-surprises-about-french...

[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-...

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53106444

[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiegold/2020/06/18/new-scient...

[5] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/mar-27-covid-pandemic-origin...

>>nokcha+V
>That's a bad thing only if the conspiracy theory is false.

Well that depends on your objective. If it's to push a certain narrative, then it's bad if it contradicts that narrative; whether or not it's true is secondary.

>>brohoo+X
I had separate exposure to COVID-19 before vaccination, and before it was super easy to get tested for antibodies. The reality is, whether or not I had exposure or not hardly matters at this point, and it's impossible to prove one way or the other.

It may be very hard to determine if people sick in 2019 had COVID-19 or something else at this time.