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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBusted: Pentagon Contractors' Report on 'Wuhan Lab' Origins of Virus Is Bogus
A military contractors report circulating on Capitol Hill claims to have evidence that COVID-19 escaped from a Chinese lab. Its filled with information thats just plain wrong.Erin Banco
Adam Rawnsley
Lachlan Cartwright
Updated May. 18, 2020 9:12AM ET / Published May. 17, 2020 9:00PM ET
A shocking report suggesting that the coronavirus was release[d from] the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China is now circulating in U.S. military and intelligence circles and on Capitol Hill. But theres a critical flaw in the report, a Daily Beast analysis reveals: Some of its most seemingly persuasive evidence is falseprovably false.
Multiple congressional committees have obtained and are scrutinizing the 30-page report, produced by the Multi-Agency Collaboration Environment (MACE), a part of Sierra Nevada, a major Department of Defense contractor. The report claims to rely on social media postings, commercial satellite imagery, and cellphone location data to draw the conclusion that some sort of hazardous event occurred at the Wuhan virology lab in October 2019an event that allowed COVID-19 to escape. Its a theory that has gained currency on the political right and in the upper tiers of the Trump administration.
But the reports claim centers around missing location data for up to seven phones and in many cases, less than that. Its too small a sample size to prove much of anything, especially when the same devices showed similar absences in the spring of 2019. The MACE document claims a November 2019 conference was canceled because of some calamity; in fact, there are selfies from the event.
Whats more, imagery collected by DigitalGlobes Maxar Technologies satellites and provided to The Daily Beast reveals a simpler, less exotic reason for why analysts believed roadblocks went into place around the lab after the supposed accident: road construction. The Maxar images also show typical workdays, with normal traffic patterns around the lab, after the supposedly cataclysmic event.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-contractors-report-on-wuhan-lab-origins-of-coronavirus-is-bogus
donkeypoofed
(2,187 posts)It can't be written off as nonsensical or a simple conspiracy, and due to proximity to Wuhan, the conspiracy theories will never go away. Out of all the cities in all the world, it happened to start there. Accidents happen and it's a real possibility.
LiberalArkie
(15,730 posts)different animals among then bats. The samples were taken back to the lab to discern whether the sample posed a threat to humans. The samples used to be sent to labs all over the world until China built a BSL4 lab. It is far safer to test the samples close to the source than to put them on planes.
As with any lab there is always a possibility that a person in the lab could have an accident.
Remember all the ebola doctors and nurses getting sick do to an accident. Remember all the nurses and doctors catching HIV due to accidents. Shit Happens.