COVID ORIGINSDebate Over COVID Origins Continues

Published 5 November 2022

Late last week, ProPublica published an article claiming to have unveiled new information from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) supporting the lab leak theory of COVID-19’s origin. Now, the piece some have described as a train wreck is being heavily criticized for having faulty translations, mis-matched dates, misrepresenting the sources of the documents discussed in it, not understanding how common VPN usage is in China-related research, and more.

Last week, Pandora Report reviewed an article published earlier in the week in ProPublica, in which two researchers claim to have found new evidence to support the lab-leak theory of the origins of the COVID virus. Scientists criticized the researchers’ assumptions, methodology, evidence, and conclusions – and, in fairness, the researchers themselves admitted that their approach is highly conjectural. Other critics, however, pointed out other factors which tripped the two researchers: their lack of knowledge of recent Chinese history and politics, their unawareness of research policies in China, and their ignorance of the Chinese language and how it is being used in official communication.

Here is the Pandora Report’s article”

Late last week, ProPublica and Vanity Fair released a piece in conjunction with the Senate HELP Committee minority’s interim report, claiming to have unveiled new information from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) supporting the lab leak theory of COVID-19’s origin. In it, Katherine Eban and Jeff Kao rely heavily on the work of a single self-proclaimed polyglottal State Department political officer to translate Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “party speak,” which he claims native speakers “can’t really follow…” Now, the piece some have described as a train wreck is being heavily criticized for having faulty translations, mis-matched dates, misrepresenting the sources of the documents discussed in it, not understanding how common VPN usage is in China-related research, and more. Now ProPublica is reportedly scrambling to review critical details of their piece, but is it too late? Let’s talk about some core issues with the article and they might mean long term.

‘Party Speak’ or Just Lost in Translation?
The first half of the ProPublica piece is dominated by glowing discussion of Toy Reid, a former RAND Corporation and East Asia political officer at the US Department of State, covering his blue collar origins and attendance at Harvard. They then discuss how Reid spent over a year working for the Senate HELP Committee, using a VPN to search “dispatches” on the WIV’s website from Hart Senate Office Building and his Florida home. They write, “These dispatches remain on the internet, but their meaning can’t be unlocked by just anyone. Using his hard-earned expertise, Reid believes he unearthed secrets that were hiding in plain sight.”