Whether lab or market origin, anyone trying to cover for China should remember both scenarios are humiliating for the Chinese government.

The only Covid narrative that doesn’t directly aim to control people has to do with determining the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Discovering the origin of the virus should have been a top priority, but it was not. Why? Perhaps, instead of controlling people, the goal in this case was to cover for complicit behavior.

There are only two plausible competing virus origin hypotheses: “lab leak” and “wet market.” Instead of imploring scientists to work together and discover the truth, then-National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins wrote in an email to presidential medical advisor Anthony Fauci early in the pandemic: “Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy [i.e., ‘lab leak’], with what seems to be growing momentum.”

Knowing that SARS-CoV-1 leaked from a Chinese lab on at least two occasions in the early 2000s, why would Collins and Fauci be so quick to “put down” the lab leak hypothesis? //

Either way, whether lab or market origin, anyone trying to cover for China apparently must be reminded that both scenarios are humiliating for the Chinese government. Both represent extremely careless and unhygienic behavior, especially considering that wet markets are places where endangered animals like pangolins are slaughtered for completely unscientific medicines.

The difference, of course, is that the lab scenario also implicates powerful interests in the United States. Thus, it’s not difficult to understand why stifling the lab leak would be important to those in power.

Covid caused those in power to react to events that they had little to no influence over with narratives designed to give the illusion of taking control of the situation. What makes this pandemic different are the tools available to control the narratives, namely the addition of Big Tech and their willingness to suppress debate.

Still, the truism noted by Aldous Huxley that “facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored” remains. The challenge is to ensure that people in our society are never too intimidated to offer counter-narratives or debate the edicts from those with power. ///

If the origins were not a lab leak, would there not be more interest in confirming that it was not not? The amount of effort out into dismissing the lab leak origin suggests there is something there.

Francis Collins may very well be a believer and a good follower of Christ, but that does not mean that he is not a sinner and a flawed man, just like all of us. It also does not mean that he shares the same morals or morés as other Christians, including oneself. Without knowing someone personally and knowing something of their heart, "Christians" in positions of power should be treated with the same disinterested suspicion as any other politician.