Will the RW pause its transgender freakout and book banning?
The Department of Energy has a special announcement.
Well, it’s not that special, really. It’s another “low confidence” finding not unlike the Cochrane mask study that Bret Stephens hyped last week in the New York Times. In a classified report, the DOE finds based on new intelligence that there is a low probability that COVID-19 originated from an accidental lab leak in China.
Then come the caveats (New York Times):
Some officials briefed on the intelligence said that it was relatively weak and that the Energy Department’s conclusion was made with “low confidence,” suggesting its level of certainty was not high. While the department shared the information with other agencies, none of them changed their conclusions, officials said.
Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan would not confirm the intelligence, telling CNN on Sunday “there is no definitive answer” the the origin of the pandemic. The 18 services in the intelligence community have differing assessments.
In addition to the Energy Department, the F.B.I. has also concluded, with moderate confidence, that the virus first emerged accidentally from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Chinese lab that worked on coronaviruses. Four other intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have concluded, with low confidence, that the virus most likely emerged through natural transmission, the director of national intelligence’s office announced in October 2021.
“Natural” would be the Wuhan animal market theory.
Also naturally, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and colleagues jumped right on hyping the news, proven or not.
It is important to understand where the virus originated for knowing how to stop future pandemics. The Biden administration ordered intelligence agencies to investigate COVID-19’s origins early in his administration.
The Times report continues:
The intelligence agencies have said they do not believe there is any evidence that the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was created deliberately as a biological weapon. But they have said that whether it emerged naturally, perhaps from a market in Wuhan, or escaped accidentally from a lab is the subject of legitimate debate.
The only debate the extremist right will have over the next few days is whether to take a break from demonizing transgender people, immigrants, and public education, and from its embrace of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, to attend to demonizing China. Media executives at Fox will have to ask themselves whether the network and its audience has the bandwidth.
NOTE: An update-related laptop crash kept me from posting while on the road on Sunday. Two hours of Windows reset and some rebuilding later, it’s fixed.