Fake News? Or disturbing investigation?

We all have been affected by this pandemic, that's a no-brainer. All of the finger pointing and blaming will have zero effect on the actual management of the pandemic and its potential to leave millions of deaths in its wake ... that's what we should all be focusing on. With so much at risk, coupled with the associated anxiety, we need to be wary of both the validity and bias of the news reports we use to arm ourselves with knowledge about the virus, it's effects and, to a certain extent, it's origins.

This is not a post about how bad things are, but rather, a raised eyebrow following a viewing of the video below. Fear mongering or generating prejudice is NOT my intention in this post. If you find a debunking of this report, please let me know. I have been primarily using Social Media as a launch pad for investigations on all that C19 has affected, both here in Canada and globally. Once I find something that peeks an interest, I will then look for more substantial information, and par for the course, I find conflicting opinions at the heart of each search.

Give this video a listen, and treat it for what it is as a biased view. I must confess that it connected with me on a few levels. I am not a fan of their obvious intention to condemn the Chinese Communist Party, carte blanche, but I also admit that the evidence, as presented here, is pretty convincing that there is something fishy going on. I was a fan of the producers making the distinction that this is not a condemnation of the Chinese people, expressing genuine appreciation of their character.

I am fully cognizant of the recent phenomenon of Fake News but research on this video does not reveal any credited source debunking ... yet ... although snopes.com does point a critical eye toward the bias of the Epoch Times, the ones who created this video CLICK. If the supposition is that this video is based in fact, and the experts to be believed, the argument points as far too much of a coincidence in the degree of similarity between the SARS variations and, in particular, the evolution of the S proteins that make Covid19 so contagious for humans as statistically impossible to be a "natural" evolution. Again, bearing in mind that factual validity is the heart of the question, the report insinuates that bats are not even sold at the market, further condemning the thought of a natural cross species contamination.

A simple web search on C19 origins reveals a number of articles, like the one from Nature.com CLICK, that refute the claims made by the video, creating confusion for the general public, and casting doubt on all sources of information.

Another post CLICK is from Dr Jason Sheppard PhD (image to right) whose work in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and postdoctoral work at MIT earned him Associate Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Utah. It's hard to argue that a person with so many letters after his name could wrong.

I am a science-trained educator. I place great faith in what can be proved through bonafide research, and I understand that exploration of our natural world is integral to the advancement of health care. With that in mind, I have always felt uneasy with the concept of gene splicing and genetic manipulation, despite the benefits that have been reported. The insidious part of the video is the professional manner in which it lays out its arguments, resonating with those of a science background, creating belief that the specifics surrounding the emergence C19 HAD to be the result of human interference. The conspiracist in me realizes that was the intention.

Having read a number of articles in preparation for writing, I really don't think that I'm any further ahead so the lesson to learned is to cast a critical eye on all things you read. The origins of the virus, in the end, really don't matter since it is already here and taking its toll on humans across the globe.

Of course, the "elephant in the room" is how are we going to make sure that this sort of thing doesn't happen again and what lessons do we learn from this pandemic?