Earlier this week in Out on a commissioned assignment--be back soon: here's a brief digest of good reads, we didn't mention the publication for which we were drafting an article.
This morning, Minnesota’s right wing keyboard warriors lapping up COVID-19 conspiracy theories was published by the Minnesota Reformer, much polished by editor J. Patrick Coolican's skills. We're happy to be in the company of the staff and freelance writers at the relatively new venue, and hope readers will sign up for the Daily Refomer.
One conspiracy theory we'd picked up in Congressman Hagedorn's campaign emails share only the finest COVID-19 news sources was a piece of that mix. Hagedorn's campaign had shared under the subject head A Chinese Coverup? Signed by the congressional candidate, the email centers around his response to the Fox News report, Sources believe coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan lab as part of China's efforts to compete with US.
We'd thrown that one into the mix in both articles.
Since we filed the copy, the tale has gained attention from conflicting accounts from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the President of the United States. The Associated Press's Zeke Miller reported on Thursday in Trump speculates that China released virus in lab 'mistake:
President Donald Trump has speculated that China could have unleashed the coronavirus on the world due to some kind of horrible “mistake,” and his intelligence agencies said they are still examining a notion put forward by the president and aides that the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.
Trump even suggested Thursday that the release could have been intentional.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the clearinghouse for the web of U.S. spy agencies, said it had ruled out the virus being man-made but was still investigating the precise source of the global pandemic, which has killed more than 220,000 people worldwide.
Well then. The story continues:
Though scientists suggest the likeliest origin of the pandemic remains natural, that it spread from an infected animal to a human, Trump claimed to have seen evidence to support the theory that the origin was an infectious disease lab in Wuhan, the epicenter of the Chinese outbreak.
He said the U.S. now “is finding how it came out.”
“It’s a terrible thing that happened,” the president said. “Whether they made a mistake or whether it started off as a mistake and then they made another one, or did somebody do something on purpose.”
The intel statement said the federal agencies concur “with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.”
Kaiser Health News Friday Morning Briefing reported Intelligence Agencies Concur With Scientific Consensus That Virus Was Not Man-Made. Its news digest:
President Donald Trump has pushed the idea that the coronavirus was manufactured in a Chinese lab, though scientists studying it say that it comes from nature. Intelligence agencies were directed by the White House to investigate, but, in a rare move, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence signaled support for the scientific consensus that the virus was "not manmade or genetically modified.”
The Washington Post: Chinese Lab Conducted Extensive Research On Deadly Bat Viruses, But There Is No Evidence Of Accidental Release For nearly a decade, a team of scientists from Wuhan, China, crisscrossed southern Asia in a high-stakes search for bats and the strange diseases they harbor. They crawled through caves, catching the razor-toothed mammals with nets and scooping up liters of their excrement. They trapped insects and mice living near bat roosts and collected blood from villagers who hunt bats for food or folk medicine. They returned to their state-of-the-art laboratory in central China with tubes and vials containing known killers — pathogens associated with diseases that are deadly in humans — and also a few surprises. On multiple occasions, their takings included exotic coronaviruses previously unknown to science. (Warrick, Nakashima, Harris and Fifield, 4/30)
The Wall Street Journal: In Rare Move, U.S. Intelligence Agencies Confirm Investigating If Coronavirus Emerged From Lab Accident The U.S. intelligence community publicly confirmed it is trying to determine whether the coronavirus may have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic began. In an unusual public statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, also said that U.S. intelligence agencies concur with the broad scientific consensus that “the Covid-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.” (Strobel and Volz, 4/30)
The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Probes University Of Texas Links To Chinese Lab Scrutinized Over Coronavirus The Education Department has asked the University of Texas System to provide documentation of its dealings with the Chinese laboratory U.S. officials are investigating as a potential source of the coronavirus pandemic. The request for records of gifts or contracts from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its researcher Shi Zhengli, known for her work on bats, is part of a broader department investigation into possible faulty financial disclosures of foreign money by the Texas group of universities. (O'Keeffe, 5/1)
The Washington Post: Trump Administration Launches Major Effort To Force China To Pay Over Coronavirus Senior U.S. officials are beginning to explore proposals for punishing or demanding financial compensation from China for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to four senior administration officials with knowledge of internal planning. The move could splinter already strained relations between the two superpowers at a perilous moment for the global economy. (Stein, Leonnig, Dawsey and Shih, 4/30).
We're curious how a new chapter in the conflict between the Trump Administration and China will affect the agricultural export market upon which America's industrial ag conflict depends. So much efficiency to go around between the coronavirus ripping through American meat-packing jungles and trade wars. My, my.
Photo: A bat.
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