The COVID-19-escaped-from-a-lab theory is gaining steam – thanks to Sen. Marco Rubio.
On Wednesday, the Florida Republican hosted a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats, according to Breitbart News. The featured witnesses were Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, CIA Director William Burns, and the National Security Agency Director Gen. Paul Nakasone.
At one point, Rubio noted two plausible theories existed for how the coronavirus spread from Wuhan: The “official” theory, that it was a new “zoonotic transmission,” or that it was a lab accident.
Explaining the latter, Rubio pointed out researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have made clear they are “skilled” at genetically modifying bat coronaviruses to generate new man-made viruses. Additionally, China has been prone to lab leaks, and in 2019 U.S. diplomats who visited the Wuhan lab warned of the risk of “subpar safety standards” they had observed.
Rubio then asked, “We can’t conclude definitively that the virus that causes COVID-19 emerged naturally until there’s a transmission chain that’s been identified how the virus evolved and transmitted between species. And to date, no such path of zoonotic transmission has been definitively identified. Are those two things accurate?”
The witnesses didn’t admit that COVID-19 was lab-manufactured and escaped. But they didn’t dispute it, either.
Haines, replying to Rubio, said, “It is absolutely accurate the intelligence community does not know exactly where, when, or how COVID-19 virus was transmitted initially. And basically, components have coalesced around two alternative theories.
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The scenarios are it emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, or it was a laboratory accident as you identified. And that is where we are right now, but we’re continuing to work on this issue and collect information, and, to the best we can, essentially to give you greater confidence in what the scenario is.
At his turn, Burns acknowledged that the Chinese leaders have not been “fully forthcoming or fully transparent in working with the W.H.O. or in providing the kind of original, complete data that would help answer those questions.”
“So, he added, “we’re doing everything we can using all the sources available to all of us on this panel to try to get to the bottom of it.”
Nakasone simply answered that his agency was assisting in the pursuit of an answer as well.
Even the liberal media could not avoid sensing which way the wind is now blowing.
As Yahoo News reported, for example, Hanies’ testimony was “the clearest and most public confirmation to date of the ongoing intelligence community investigation into this theory” of a lab leak.
The outlet added, “The Chinese government’s effort to stymie outside investigation is one reason the possibility of a lab accident is still being considered,” and that “there is a growing consensus around the need for a more detailed investigation into the origins of the pandemic in order to prevent the next outbreak.”
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