zlacker

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.

>>nokcha+(OP)
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.

>>nokcha+(OP)
> 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!

>>nokcha+(OP)
>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.