Hospital

 

When you die of COVID-19, you die alone.

Recovery

 

More than 200,000 Americans will never recover from Donald Trump.

Lifelong Republican: 200,000 dead isn't a statistic

 

General Michael Hayden: If Trump Gets Another Term...

 

General Michael Hayden is a retired four-star general who served as Director of the CIA under President Bush. He, more than maybe anybody, understands the threats that America faces if we allow Trump four more years. "I absolutely disagree with some of Biden's policies, but that's not important. What's important is the United States, and I'm supporting Joe Biden. Biden is a good man. Donald Trump is not."

POLITICO NIGHTLY: Washington’s worst-kept secret

 

BY RYAN LIZZA AND RENUKA RAYASAM With help from Myah Ward IS IT OVER? Here is what everyone in Washington is thinking but does not want to say out loud: President Donald Trump is going to lose this election in 28 days, probably by a large margin. A growing number of insiders, including many Republicans, are starting to venture — privately — that this outcome is likely to be clear on Election Night, not days or weeks later. And Trump’s collapse is likely to take Republican control of the Senate with him. Is this a certainty? No. We all remember 2016. But the system is blinking red: — Biden leads nationally by 9 points in the Real Clear Politics average and has passed the critical 50 percent threshold. Some recent national polls have been eye-popping: 14 points in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll and 16 points in the latest CNN poll. — Biden’s lead has been growing since the first debate, an event Republicans pointed to as the key event where Trump might turn things around. — The crucial states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which was one of the few good polling states for Trump, have all been trending clearly toward Biden. — All of the polls behind this assessment were completed before today, when the president abruptly abandoned negotiations on a Covid relief bill, which could have provided an economic lifeline to millions of Americans. This is the conventional wisdom, though it is rarely said publicly. It’s been expressed by a number of glum Republicans we’ve talked to since the debate and the subsequent news of the White House becoming a Covid hot spot. “Today feels like the election’s over,” a veteran Republican strategist said Sunday. But again, we all remember 2016. So there is a quiet conspiracy to emphasize the uncertainty and stress to readers and viewers that anything could still happen. Here’s where the protocols of journalism require a meaty paragraph of qualifiers and caveats known in the business as the “to be sure graf.” In the event of a Trump victory I can point to the following as evidence that you were warned this thesis might be wrong: — The popular vote could be disguising another Trump path to an Electoral College victory. The national polls in 2016 were not that far off. Biden could perhaps win nationally by an even larger margin than Hillary Clinton did and still not get to 270 electoral votes. — Republicans insist there is a massive “shy Trump” vote that doesn’t register in the polls but will spring to life in the privacy of the ballot. — There are a series of unprecedented events gripping the country — the pandemic, the recession, nationwide protests — and so historical models from normal election years don’t serve as much of a guide. — Polling might be spectacularly wrong for one or more of these reasons. Steve Shepard, POLITICO’s senior elections editor and resident polling expert, notes that the recent spate of double-digit national polls showing big Biden leads may be the result of depressed Republicans refusing to answer the phone after the first debate. Bill McInturff, the Republican half of the bipartisan polling duo who conducts the NBC/WSJ poll, said that drop in response rate may mean Biden’s lead is more like 8 or 9 points, Steve points out. Steve adds: “I compare it to how people feel after their favorite sports team loses a big game. They don’t really want to talk about it. So there’s an argument here that polling is catching Trump at a low point, but he’s still in awful shape.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Cheers to Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer for a fantastic run at POLITICO Playbook. Reach out rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.   HAPPENING WEDNESDAY - A WOMEN RULE ROUNDTABLE ON THE VP DEBATE : In the wake of a contentious and highly criticized first debate, the attention turns to Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris who are set to square off on Oct. 7. Join Women Rule editorial director Anna Palmer for a virtual roundtable discussion with Maya Harris, Christine Pelosi and Jennifer Palmieri on how Sen. Kamala Harris has prepared for the big night and whether the VP debate will revert to political norms. REGISTER HERE.     SOME PERSONAL NEWS A NOTE FROM THE BOSS — Editor-in-chief Matt Kaminski emails us, and — more important — you, our readers: A few days before POLITICO’s Washington offices and much of America locked down in March, we launched the “Coronavirus Special Edition” newsletter you have on your screen. Nightly was built to be a place for POLITICO journalists and readers to gather — at safe distance, naturally — and find answers to hard questions, clarity at a time of confusion and original news about the historic pandemic. We assumed Nightly’s focus would be mostly limited to health care. Fate had different ideas. This crisis has touched every aspect of national life, from education to the economy and not least our politics, and this newsletter has followed. Thanks to your support and feedback, Nightly built a loyal, large audience and found a unique mission. We know that your own interests range broadly, and hope that you appreciate sharp, deep and sophisticated coverage of other issues in the Nightly style. Starting with this edition, we’ll formally dispense with the “Special Edition” sub-headline. Each evening, Nightly will focus on the political or policy story of the moment and dig behind the headlines to provide (if we do our job right) insights and reporting you can’t find somewhere else. Nightly is tomorrow’s conversation, tonight. Distilled and decluttered. For a long while to come, we expect the pandemic will dominate the national and Nightly conversation. Our commitment to deep reporting of that story remains unchanged. But we’ll also draw on POLITICO’s global newsroom to illuminate other issues in this space, as the moment demands. As always, please share your thoughts and suggestions. They’re invaluable. FIRST IN NIGHTLY HOW PENCE WILL PLAY IT — Vice President Mike Pence is entering his first and only debate against Sen. Kamala Harris with an unusual but fitting task: To clean up everything his boss said on the debate stage last week. With his serene grin, gentle charm and unrivaled ability to soften Trump’s words, Pence is seen by many White House allies as the Trump campaign’s last hope for a desperately needed reset following a streak of missteps by the man at the top of the ticket — beginning with Trump’s erratic performance during his debate against Biden and ending with his determination to leave the hospital Monday still in the throes of a serious Covid-19 infection, White House reporter Gabby Orr writes. “Ahead of the events of the last seven days, I thought the vice presidential debate would be an important opportunity for the Trump campaign. Now it’s a matter of survival,” said Republican strategist Rob Stutzman. FROM THE DEFENSE DESK JOINT CHIEFS IN QUARANTINE — The nation’s top military leaders, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, are self-quarantining after coming into contact last week with the Coast Guard’s No. 2 officer, who tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday, according to administration officials. Senior military leaders who attended several meetings at the Pentagon last week with Adm. Charles Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, tested negative for Covid-19 today but is self-quarantining as a precaution, a defense official said. Officials believe that a Friday meeting in the “tank” — the Pentagon’s secure conference room for senior military leaders — is where the virus could have spread to others, a second defense official said. Pentagon officials are conducting additional contact tracing and taking other precautions “to protect the force and the mission,” said Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman. “Out of an abundance of caution, all potential close contacts from these meetings are self-quarantining and have been tested this morning,” Hoffman said this afternoon. “No Pentagon contacts have exhibited symptoms, and we have no additional positive tests to report at this time.” PALACE INTRIGUE LATEST POSITIVE: MILLER — Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide, tested positive for Covid-19 today, according to a person familiar with the matter. Miller, a senior adviser to the president with a wide-ranging portfolio in the White House, joins Trump’s wife, press secretary, campaign manager, party chair, counselor and numerous other staffers who have tested positive for coronavirus. WFH AT WH — Trump is back at the White House, working from his sealed-off second floor residence with downsized staff and new infection protocols. Nightly chatted over Slack with White House reporter Meridith McGraw about the mood at the White House. This conversation has been edited. What’s the White House like right now? Right now, it’s a ghost town. The White House West Wing is a small space — much smaller than people realize — and staff and guests flow in and out of their offices at a steady stream all day. That isn’t the case right now as so many staffers are working from home because they have been forced to quarantine or are taking precautions. Still, some senior staff like Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, Dan Scavino and Jared Kushner were all at the White House today. Ivanka Trump, however, stayed at home. The major change would be that people inside the West Wing are wearing masks. I’ve been at the White House and have traveled with the pool throughout this pandemic, and it would be rare to see political appointees and aides in the White House wear a mask. I think at times there has been a false sense of security among some of the staff since they are tested regularly and so are their colleagues. Are there plans underway for if the president’s condition worsens, or is that a taboo topic? That’s a good question, and something I’ve asked aides about. I was told that the potential for the president’s health to worsen is always there (and we all hope the president is on the mend), but the physicians felt he could return to the White House. Are you nervous about going to the White House tomorrow as the print pool reporter? No. I feel like if you follow protocols (wear masks, keep a distance, etc.) you should be OK. And that’s exactly what the White House didn’t do. COVID-2020 HOW TO DEBATE SAFELY — Pence and Harris will debate Wednesday night, 13 feet apart instead of the original 7 feet. And possibly with plexiglass dividers on stage for the candidates and the moderator. With three debates left — Trump has already signaled that he’s participating in next week’s debate in Miami, though it will be less than two weeks since he contracted the virus — Nightly’s Myah Ward asked Abraar Karan , a physician at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, how to design a safe, in-person debate. This response has been edited. “Both candidates need to be tested daily leading up to the debate — this is because false negatives early in the disease course are more likely while the virus is still incubating. I would say the same for the moderator as well. If any of the participants has had a recent Covid-19 exposure and is supposed to be quarantining as per CDC guidelines, then they should not be doing this in person at all. Given Pence’s close contact with President Trump, he should be quarantining right now. “Additionally, everyone aside from perhaps the debaters and the moderator should definitely be wearing masks. “In terms of the debate stage, in addition to having candidates more than six feet apart, I would ensure there is good ventilation in the building (many open windows, air filtration protocols), or considering doing it in a venue that is outdoors. “I would ensure that anyone who is in the audience has also been tested, and to keep the number of audience members to the minimum deemed necessary (close family, important staff members). “Also, I am reading now about the use of plexiglass between the two candidates. I’m not sure what the height of that glass is, but aerosols travel and linger in the air. A piece of glass may help to block some droplets and other respiratory particles, but that alone is not a guarantee for smaller particles that are floating in the air. In conjunction with all other safety measures, though, I think the chance of viral transmission would be quite low, especially if they have both tested negative.” ASK THE AUDIENCE Nightly asks you: What book, movie or TV show best captures your 2020 experience? Use our form and send us your answer, and we’ll feature select responses in our Friday edition. A member of the White House cleaning staff sanitizes the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. | Getty Images FROM THE HEALTH DESK GOING WITH THE HERD — The Trump administration’s health chief met Monday with a trio of scientists who back the controversial theory that the United States can quickly and safely achieve widespread immunity to the coronavirus by allowing it to spread unfettered among healthy people, health care reporters Sarah Owermohle and David Lim write. The meeting with HHS Secretary Alex Azar, which also included Trump adviser Scott Atlas, is the latest example of administration officials — including the president himself — seeking out scientists whose contrarian views justify the government’s handling of a pandemic that has killed 210,000 people and infected more than 1 million so far in the U.S. “We heard strong reinforcement of the Trump administration’s strategy of aggressively protecting the vulnerable while opening schools and the workplace,” Azar tweeted after his meeting with Harvard medical professor Martin Kulldorff, Stanford medical professor Jay Bhattacharya and Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta. Mainstream medical and public health experts say that seeking widespread, or herd, immunity in the manner the scientists prescribe could result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands or even millions more U.S. residents. BRIGHT GOES DARK — Rick Bright, the federal vaccine chief-turned-whistleblower who was reassigned to a different agency and subsequently criticized the Trump administration’s pandemic response, has left the federal government, Bright’s lawyers announced today. “Dr. Bright was forced to leave his position at NIH because he can no longer sit idly by and work for an administration that ignores scientific expertise, overrules public health guidance and disrespects career scientists, resulting the [sic.] in the sickness and death of hundreds of thousands of Americans,” lawyers Debra Katz and Lisa Banks said in a statement. Bright was abruptly removed as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority in April and reassigned to NIH, and he alleges that he was demoted because he opposed political pressure linked to an unproven Covid-19 treatment, health care reporter Dan Diamond writes. In his updated filing with the Office of Special Counsel, Bright said that he was assigned “no meaningful work” at NIH since Sept. 4, further alleging that NIH Director Francis Collins “declined to support” his recommendations about coronavirus testing “because of political considerations.” NIGHTLY NUMBER 10 The number of hours added for Michigan election clerks in larger jurisdictions to process ballots ahead of Election Day. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a law allowing local clerks, in jurisdictions of more than 25,000, the additional limited window to process but not count ballots on Nov. 2. (h/t campaigns reporter Zach Montellaro) PARTING WORDS DEMS AWAIT DISARRAY — As Election Day nears, Democrats are scrambling to counter disinformation campaigns, complicated absentee ballot requirements and consolidated polling locations. All of which they say threaten the groups Joe Biden can’t win without in November: Black and Latino voters, Maya King writes. Democrats are encouraging voters to cast their mail-in ballots as soon as possible and be mindful of voter registration deadlines in their respective states. In the wake of Trump’s attacks on the U.S. Postal Service, they’ve shifted tactics, incorporating early and in-person options to their voter guidance. According to findings from a data leak first reported by the British Channel 4 news, in 2016, the Trump campaign targeted 3.5 million Black voters in a widespread, data-based form of voter suppression. And now voting rights advocates are girding for a repeat. It’s one reason why liberals are worried that, despite national polls showing the Democratic nominee ahead of Trump, voter suppression tactics could undermine his lead in battleground states.   HELP BUILD SOLUTIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL HEALTH: POLITICO is a proud partner of the ninth annual Meridian Summit, focused on The Rise of Global Health Diplomacy. The virtual Meridian Summit will engage a global audience and the sharpest minds in diplomacy, business, government and beyond to build a more equitable economic recovery and save more lives. Join the conversation to help secure the future of our global health.     Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam   FOLLOW US

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RSN: William Boardman | Here's a Thought: Have Presidential Candidates Debate Serious Issues

 

 

06 October 20

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A reader wrote in the other day saying, "I'll only donate if I think you're going out of business." Therein lies the problem clearly stated, no?

What this funding drive and all funding drives are about is moving away from that way of thinking.

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I'LL ONLY DONATE IF I THINK YOU'RE GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" A reader wrote in the other day saying, "I'll only donate if I think you are going out of business." Therein lies the problem clearly stated, no? What this funding drive and all funding drives are about is moving away from that way of thinking. Time to think. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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RSN: William Boardman | Here's a Thought: Have Presidential Candidates Debate Serious Issues

William Boardman, Reader Supported News
Boardman writes: "The first thing to be said about the 'presidential debate' on September 29 is that there was no Presidential Debate on September 29."

 We don’t have Presidential Debates in the United States any more and haven’t for years. We have TV quiz shows of a sort that are demeaning to any serious candidate, who is forced to put up with the more or less uninformed preening of news performers with no persuasive credentials for questioning much of anyone. Thoughtful discussions, according to the reigning conventional wisdom, make for “bad television,” meaning lower ratings, meaning less income, so the TV industry that exists only because it uses public airwaves avoids substantive, reliable discussion at the expense of the public good. This sham political theatre is all the result of the 1987 takeover of the debate franchise by the country’s two major parties under the guise of the Potemkin leadership of the Commission on Presidential Debates. But that’s a long, sordid story for another day. It’s enough for now to see how calamitously the process has devolved.

The TV show starring Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Chris Wallace was an out-of-control mud fight from the start and never got better. We had orange-faced Trump blustering and acting “strong.” We had pale-faced Biden speaking meekly and trying to act “reasonable.” And we had Wallace, apparently surprised by the play, caught in an untenable position of being expected to control the top two contenders for “leader of the free world.” Realistically, it’s a wonder anything coherent at all crept out of that 90-minute fiasco, not that much did. Do we have any clearer understanding of the candidates’ true intentions with regard to health care, race relations, police violence, poverty, or climate change, among other major issues? I don’t think so.

The intellectual barrenness of the event can also be measured by what was omitted, such as our participation in a genocidal war or our criminal treatment of immigrants.

Since March 2015, the US has supported Saudi Arabia and its allies in their unmitigated bombing of Yemen, killing civilians with disregard for the laws of war and creating the world’s most devastating humanitarian crisis. Worthy of mention in a US Presidential TV show? No.

For most of the past decade, the US government has visited cruelties and horrors upon immigrants along our southern border – men, women, and especially children fleeing frighteningly violent conditions in their home countries that the US was instrumental in creating in the first place. We’ve known for years that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is particularly cruel to children, even denying girls sanitary products for their menstrual periods. Now we’re learning that ICE has been carrying out US policy of forcibly sterilizing immigrant women against their will. Forced sterilization is what the Nazis did. Forced sterilization is what the US did in the early 20th century. Forced sterilization is a crime against humanity. Isn’t it worth a mention in a US Presidential TV show? No.

For all that Chris Wallace floundered and failed to raise important issues, it’s really not up to the moderator to make the candidates perform. Trump and Biden both claim to be worthy of being President, so it’s up to them to demonstrate their worth. Trump performed predictably, consistent with past performance going back years. Biden and his handlers could and should have known Trump’s capabilities and prepared to meet them effectively. Did Biden demonstrate the kind of strength we want in a President facing an obnoxious foreign leader? Not so much.

Some say the September 29 performance was “unlike anything we have seen before.” That’s nonsense. If you haven’t seen it before, then you haven’t been looking. When Trump was allowed to prowl the stage behind Hillary Clinton and no one even made an effort to challenge him, we knew he was capable of doing whatever he felt like. He might as well have grabbed her pussy – the theatrical effect was the same. Maybe then she would have reacted.

American debates have not always been like carnival sideshows. The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 offer a stark contrast to the clownery of our time. Abraham Lincoln was challenging Stephen Douglas for his seat in the US Senate. They agreed to hold seven joint debates in different Illinois counties. The format was simple: one candidate would speak for 60 minutes, the other would speak for 90 minutes, then the first would close for 30 minutes. They alternated going first at different locations. There was no moderator. The candidates performed unmediated. These debates were immensely popular and received national coverage. Douglas won re-election, but the debates helped Lincoln win the Presidency two years later. The main subject of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was slavery, the most pressing issue facing the nation.

It is all but impossible to imagine such a series of debates today, on race relations or any other crucial issue. What politician can we imagine speaking coherently for an hour or ninety minutes? There are a few. But what audience can we imagine sitting attentively for three hours? That is a sad measure of American culture today, where too much of the public is distracted by shiny irrelevancies while the party in power loots the government and rescinds the laws that protect us.

Serious as the coronavirus pandemic is, it’s also been the source of shiny irrelevancies of all kinds. Currently, there are those who claim that Trump is not sick and his Covid-19 hospitalization is an elaborate hoax. On the other side, the candidate who challenged Nancy Pelosi for her House seat and came out with 2% of the vote has now claimed that Democrats gave Trump the virus. DeAnna Lorraine, a QAnon-promoting Infowars personality, tweeted on October 2:

I’m just going to say what we’re all thinking. Trump was fine until the debate, where they set up microphones & podiums for him. Incubation period is usually 2-3 days. He tests positive a couple of days after the debate. I put nothing past the left. NOTHING….

Does anyone else find it odd that no prominent Democrats have had the virus but the list of Republicans goes on and on?

That’s a thought to feed paranoia, but there may be another explanation. Lorraine herself elsewhere offered a possible reason for Republican vulnerability:

Biblically, God does not want us wearing masks… If you have a mask on, it means you actually don’t trust God. You don’t have faith.

Given the level and variety of discourse in this country, even at its best, one may be tempted just to trust God. But it’s probably still a good idea to wear a mask around others, especially around all those unmasked believers. And it’s also probably a good idea to vote, based on your best guess of what’s real at the moment.

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William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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FAIR: Evidence-Free 'Lab Leak' Speculation Boosts Trump's Xenophobic Approach to Coronavirus

FEW CAN RESEARCH THE LIES AND MISINFORMATION EMANATING FROM tRUMPERS AND THE UNQUALIFIED, INCOMPETENT APPOINTMENTS. 

MAKING CHINA THE ENEMY WITHOUT SCIENCE AND SCIENTIFIC REVIEW IS EGREGIOUS. 

THE US HAS HAD EPIDEMIOLOGISTS IN CHINA UNTIL tRUMP FIRED THEM.

BUSH ESTABLISHED THE PANDEMIC COMMITTEE TO PROTECT AMERICANS BECAUSE IT WAS KNOWN THAT A PANDEMIC WOULD LIKELY ORIGINATE IN ASIA. OBAMA PRESENTED tRUMP WITH THE BLUE PRINT THAT HE ELIMINATED. 

View article on FAIR's website Evidence-Free 'Lab Leak' Speculation Boosts Trump's Xenophobic Approach to Coronavirus JOSHUA CHO   Even while downplaying speculation about a labratory origin for the novel coronavirus as "conspiracy theories," NBC (8/10/20) fueled such rumors by describing the Wuhan lab as "central to the search for the coronavirus' origin." Ever since the outbreak of Covid-19 was first detected in Wuhan, China has been the target of relentless hostile and racist media coverage, depicting the country as a uniquely nefarious source of disease (FAIR.org, 3/24/20, 5/7/20). NBC News (8/10/20) was the first foreign news organization to visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which it described as having “become the focus of intense speculation and conspiracy theories” about whether the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes Covid-19 “leaked from the facility.” While NBC noted that there is “no credible proof to back up claims that the coronavirus was either manufactured at or accidentally leaked from the lab,” the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin (Twitter, 8/10/20) suggested that NBC was “toeing the [Chinese Communist] Party line,” criticism that was amplified by Fox News (8/10/20), which later (8/11/20) cited US officials claiming that “the virus likely originated in the lab.” While the notion that the novel coronavirus was intentionally or unintentionally leaked from a Wuhan lab has been taken less seriously by corporate media than other criticisms of China’s Covid response (possibly because US officials want to avoid attracting attention to the US’s own biowarfare programs), it has nevertheless been mainstreamed. Ever since Republican Sen. Tom Cotton went on Fox News (2/16/20, 2/18/20) to boost speculation that had been circulating in conservative media and fringe Facebook posts for weeks prior, noting the proximity between the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan and Wuhan’s “biosafety level four super laboratory,” and decrying “China’s duplicity and dishonesty,” evidence-free speculation about a lab origin has been a media undercurrent that buoys up President Donald Trump’s xenophobic references to the “China virus.” Washington Post's David Ignatius (4/14/20): "Scientists don't rule out...an accidental lab release of bat coronavirus." The lab leak theory started gaining an aura of respectability with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius’ “How Did Covid-19 Begin? Its Initial Origin Story Is Shaky” (4/2/20). He argued for the plausibility of a lab accident, writing that “scientists don’t rule out that an accident at a research laboratory in Wuhan” might have “spread a deadly bat virus that had been collected for scientific study.” Ignatius cited Dr. Richard Ebright, a biosecurity expert at Rutgers University who has been a go-to source for several other reports after he spoke publicly about supposed unsafe operating practices at the WIV. Rogin, Ignatius’ Post colleague, followed up with a piece (4/14/20) about a previously unreleased State Department cable from 2018 that cited “scientists at the WIV laboratory” saying that “the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” and asking for additional help from US researchers. Rogin managed to quote Xiao Qiang—a National Endowment for Democracy–funded regime change activist and “research scientist” at Berkeley’s “School of Information”—as well as an otherwise unidentified “US official,” but no actual virologists or epidemiologists. Rogin also depicted Shi Zhengli—the head of the WIV project studying bat coronaviruses—as a reckless scientist taking “unnecessary risks” by linking to an article (Nature, 11/12/15) about experiments that were mostly conducted in the US; the only experiment described in the paper the article critiques (Nature Medicine, 11/9/15) that was actually conducted in Wuhan involved pseudoviruses, which are partial copies of viruses that lack their virulent potential or the ability to reproduce. The Nature article questioned the wisdom of “gain-of-function” (GOF) research in general, not Shi or the WIV’s competence as Rogin implied, as neither of them are mentioned in the article. The safety protocols at the WIV are not only practiced by scientists all over the world, but were also shaped by WIV scientists due to their excellence (NPR, 4/23/20). Grayzone journalists Max Blumenthal and Ajit Singh (4/20/20) pointed out that Rogin’s column depended on State Department cables that undermined his insinuations throughout the article: US officials emphasized the value of the Wuhan lab’s research to predict and prevent coronavirus outbreaks, rather than safety concerns. Still, Rogin’s column was promoted on Twitter by liberal commentators like MSNBC’s Chris Hayes (4/14/20) and New York's Yashar Ali (4/14/20). One of Donald Trump's favorite media figures, Fox News' Tucker Carlson (9/17/20), pushed the lab leak theory hard. More recently, there was further media buzz over Fox News host Tucker Carlson (9/17/20) defending the credibility of Dr. Yan Li Meng, a discredited defector who makes inflated claims to have worked at the “top coronavirus lab in the world.” She asserted that the Communist Party of China “intentionally” released the coronavirus, and that “the scientific world” is keeping silent because it “works together” with the Chinese government (Forbes, 9/17/20). She co-authored a non-peer-reviewed “study” which made a number of dubious, irrelevant, or false claims published by the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation, which are New York City-based groups Steve Bannon and wanted Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui helped found (National Geographic, 9/18/20). There are, broadly speaking, two types of lab leak theories: One holds that the virus was created in a lab, the other that the virus evolved naturally in the wild before being collected by a lab. The former theory has an advantage as a scientific hypothesis because it’s falsifiable, meaning that it’s possible to imagine evidence that would prove or disprove it; unfortunately for its proponents, it’s widely viewed by scientists as having been falsified. Most reports acknowledge the strong scientific consensus around Covid-19 likely originating naturally in wildlife, most likely bats. In February, the Lancet (2/19/20) published an open letter by 27 health researchers from eight countries defending the integrity of Chinese officials and health professionals combating the disease, and strongly condemned “conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.” The open letter also stated that scientific findings to date “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife, as have so many other emerging pathogens.” One widely cited study, published in the scientific journal Nature (3/17/20) and written by a team of American, Australian and British researchers, stated that they “do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible,” and that their “analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.” The authors of the Nature study reached this conclusion because  SARS-CoV-2’s adaptations from the original SARS-CoV virus, the pathogen that causes SARS, are too effective for humans to have engineered. Coronaviruses get their name from the spikes covering the virion’s surface, resembling the sun’s corona. However, the spikes that cover the SARS-CoV-2 virion’s surface bind to the same functional host cell receptor in humans (ACE2) 10 times more tightly than does SARS-CoV. SARS-CoV-2’s second notable adaptation is the acquisition of a polybasic cleavage site (a part of the spike that has to be cleaved before the spike can latch onto a human cell), and SARS-CoV-2’s cleavage sites are made of amino acids that attract furin enzymes, which are essential for infecting lung cells. Bob Garry (Vice, 3/20/20), an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at the Tulane University School of Medicine, and coauthor of the Nature study, explained that no computer programs scientists use to model the interactions between the virus’s spikes and ACE2 receptors could predict that SARS-CoV-2 would bind very well, let alone 10 times better—which is evidence in favor of the alterations being selected by natural selection rather than human engineering. Furthermore, the virus’s genetic makeup isn’t a mishmash of known viruses, which would likely be the case if it were truly human-made, which is why the Nature study’s authors concluded that the “genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.” Following Rogin’s article, Fox News’ Bret Beier published another op-ed, “Sources Believe Coronavirus Outbreak Originated in Wuhan Lab as Part of China's Efforts to Compete With US” (4/15/20). Beier claimed that “there is increasing confidence that the Covid-19 outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory,” coming from “classified and open-source documents” he acknowledged he hadn’t read, relying instead on the accuracy and integrity of anonymous sources. CNN (5/3/20) amplified Mike Pompeo's evidence-free claims of "enormous evidence" for a lab origin. Corporate media then gave a wide platform to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (ABC News, 5/3/20; CNN, 5/3/20; New York Times, 5/3/20), who has a long record of dishonesty, to promote the lab leak theory. He claimed there is “enormous evidence” the virus originated in a Chinese lab before walking back those pronouncements. Of course, if the US government really did have “enormous evidence” of a lab leak, one can simply ask why it hasn’t already presented a smoking gun. Other proponents of the lab leak origin claim that the Nature study doesn’t prove what it purports to, because it discounts the possibility of the virus being collected in the wild and studied before somehow being released from a lab. However, this scenario is largely a circular and unfalsifiable argument—because a virus that came from the wild through a lab looks exactly like one that began infecting humans in the wild. It’s true that there is a troubling history of accidental lab leaks of potential pandemic pathogens. And some of the professionals who authored the Lancet’s open letter and the Nature study have connections to the US government and the bioweapons industry, as much viral research in the US is funded by the Pentagon’s biological arms race (Salon, 4/24/20). In fact, one compelling reason to think that Covid-19 is not an intentionally leaked bioweapon is that there are plenty of other pathogens that are much more deadly. For example, the Ebola and Marburg viruses have case fatality rates ranging from 24% to 90%, and while we don’t know the true death rate for Covid-19—because it varies widely in different regions—it is much lower than that across the board. If Covid-19 is the result of an intentionally released bioweapon, it would make a lot more sense to select a deadlier pathogen than SARS-CoV-2. It also doesn’t make any sense for the Chinese government to intentionally release a novel pathogen like SARS-CoV-2 onto its own population in the hopes that it would do even worse damage to its geopolitical rivals. This is simply a fantastical scenario that doesn’t merit further discussion. US researchers who have worked at the WIV have attested to the safety standards and quality of research there, denied that the WIV is a bioweapons research lab, and explained that the Chinese government issuing new biosafety directives isn’t a sign of concealing a lab breach, but standard practice when dealing with a novel pathogen (Health Feedback, 3/2/20). Scientific American (6/1/20) profiled the epidemiological achievements of virologist Shi Zhengli, depicted as a villain in other media. The WIV’s Shi Zhengli, disparaged by Rogin as reckless, is an accomplished virologist whose pioneering research is responsible for giving a headstart in understanding SARS-CoV-2; she attested that none of the bat coronaviruses previously studied at her lab match the new virus’s genetic sequence (Scientific American, 6/1/20). And there’s no reason to think that the WIV was the source of SARS-CoV-2 just because it was already researching bat coronaviruses. Even a virus studied there called RaTG13, which shares 96% of its genome with the new virus, already has huge differences in evolutionary terms, as Vox (4/29/20) noted: “The level of genome sequence divergence between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 is equivalent to an average of 50 years (and at least 20 years) of evolutionary change,” said Edward Holmes, a professor at the University of Sydney who has published six academic papers this year on the genome and origin of SARS-CoV-2, in a statement. “Hence, SARS-CoV-2 was not derived from RaTG13.” The WIV lab is a joint collaboration between China and France, and has been certified by officials in both countries, as well as by the International Organization for Standardization. The French government, which has the most knowledge of and experience with the WIV, has stated there is no factual evidence corroborating the information recently circulating in the United States press that establishes a link between the origins of Covid-19 and the work of the P4 laboratory of Wuhan, China. Perhaps the strongest argument to be made in favor of the idea of a lab leak derives from reports of the WIV performing animal passage and GOF research (Independent Science News, 6/2/20; Newsweek, 4/27/20). These are experiments designed to create pathogens with pandemic potential by passing a virus through animals (rather than cell culture) to induce faster mutation, or deliberately creating new viruses by cutting and pasting known viruses or via in vitro mutation to prepare for future pandemics. Numerous labs perform this kind of risky research. The argument that the virus came out of the WIV in particular depends heavily on the city of Wuhan being the site of the original outbreak, because as an urban area like Wuhan is on its face an unlikely place for animal-to-human transmission to have occurred, and the proximity of the WIV and its animal passage experiments, proponents say, is a suspicious coincidence. But Wuhan has not been proven to be the original location of the global Covid-19 outbreak.  That it was the first city to detect an outbreak of Covid-19 does not necessarily mean it originated there. Many pandemics have disputed origins. The 1918 influenza pandemic was called the “Spanish Flu” because neutral Spain had less censorship than European countries fighting in World War I, and so journalists there were free to write about an outbreak that was emerging across the continent. While the origins of the pandemic are still murky, very few believe the pandemic actually originated in Spain (Conversation, 3/17/20). French doctors have discovered a case of Covid-19 dated back to December 2019 in someone in who has never traveled to China, and Spanish virologists found traces of SARS-CoV-2 in Barcelona wastewater collected in March 2019—nine months before the virus was detected in China (though these reports don’t necessarily prove that SARS-CoV-2 originated in Europe). Shi Zhengli believes that the crossover from bats to humans occurred outside of Hubei Province (where Wuhan is located), as years of bat virus surveillance there haven’t turned up any bat coronaviruses similar to SARS-CoV-2. In an exclusive interview with Science Magazine (7/24/20), Shi revealed that over the past 15 years, the Wuhan lab has only isolated and grown in culture three bat coronaviruses related to any that infect humans, and these are related to SARS-CoV, not SARS-CoV-2. The other 2,000 bat coronaviruses the lab detected (including RaTG13) are merely genetic sequences, and incapable of replicating themselves without being cultured in host cells. This would explain why her lab first learned about the virus when receiving patient samples on December 30, 2019, after the virus was first reported by Dr. Zhang Jixian at Hubei Provincial Hospital on December 27 (FAIR.org, 6/21/20). Shi’s full explanations can be read here. In the end, the lab leak theory depends on the idea of the virus leaping from animals to humans being improbable--which it is not (Vox, 4/23/20). Due to humans altering three-quarters of terrestrial environments and two-thirds of marine environments, and thereby increasing the nature and frequency of human contact with wildlife, two-thirds of emerging infectious diseases in humans—and almost all recent epidemics like Ebola, MERS, HIV, Zika and H1N1—came from animals, with 70% of those originating in wildlife (LA Times, 4/2/20). This is one reason scientists have been urging climate action and stopping deforestation as ways to prevent new pandemics from emerging (Scientific American, 5/1/18, 6/1/20). Lab leak proponents primarily depend on making negative arguments that urge us not to discount the possibility of a leak, but not every possibility is probable. Even if it is exceedingly difficult to prove a negative, there’s little reason to entertain a lab origin theory when no actual evidence is presented that the virus originated at any particular lab. Speculation about possibilities does not constitute persuasive evidence that Covid-19 is the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, or anywhere else. While journalists should continue to report on the dangers of bioweapons research and demand more transparency, they should also exercise caution when reporting on coronavirus origin theories that play into New Cold War propaganda against China (FAIR.org, 5/15/20). Featured image: NBC News depiction (8/10/20) of workers at the Wuhan lab (Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images). Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting Our mailing address is: FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING 124 W. 30th Street, Suite 201 New York, NY 10001 FAIR's Website FAIR counts on your support to do this work — please donate today.