How the covid lab leak became the American public's predominant theory

[Celerity]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/16/lab-leak-theory-polling/

https://archive.is/E9tVK


A view of the P4 lab inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology is seen after a visit by the World Health Organization team in China's Hubei province on Feb. 3, 2021. (Ng Han Guan/AP)

For the second time in a week, a new poll shows Americans leaning strongly toward the belief that the coronavirus leaked from a lab rather than occurring naturally. The Quinnipiac University poll shows Americans side with the former view by 64 percent to 22 percent. And just last week, an Economist/YouGov poll showed an even stronger split in favor of a lab leak: 66-16.

The polls come shortly after it was reported that the Energy Department concluded the virus was probably a function of a lab leak. Republicans have played up that conclusion as they’ve ramped up congressional probes of the virus’s origins and related issues — even as the Energy Department’s conclusion is described as “low confidence,” and intelligence agencies as a whole remain decidedly split on which theory is more likely.

There is no question that the lab leak theory is ascendant in Americans’ minds, despite the scientific community and some in the media having cast plenty of doubt upon it early on. But it’s also true that this has clearly been an attractive theory for many Americans for a long time.



The first big-name pollster to test this question was the Pew Research Center. It asked the question in mid-March 2020, shortly after the first covid deaths in the United States were reported. At the time, 43 percent believed the virus came about naturally, but about 3 in 10 thought it was created either intentionally or accidentally in a lab. And as soon as a few months later, those views were effectively tied in Americans’ minds in another poll in September 2020, after President Donald Trump and others had promoted the theory. A Public Religion Research Institute poll then showed 50 percent thought it was developed intentionally in a lab, while 49 percent thought it developed naturally.

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[Mad_Machine76]

1. While I'm open to listening to any theories about COVID's origin

people still need to have some evidence/proof to back them up and so far the evidence is very circumstantial, if not sorely lacking.

[Tomconroy]

2. Here's how it happened:

https://youtube.com/shorts/sNXN0BUM9P0?feature=share

[Walleye]

3. Could've been a naturally occurring virus in an animal that they had taken into the lab to r

To do research, possible it leaked from that

[roamer65]

4. ...or a dishonest employee selling lab animals into the wet market in Wuhan.

[Walleye]

5. That's a good theory

[roamer65]

7. My gut tells either u or I are right.

I don’t think we will ever know the truth.

[seleff]

6. Hypothesis, not Theory

Drives me nuts that even science journalists, who should know better are calling lab leak vs zoonotic origin competing "theories".They are both Hypotheses 😡.
Latest support for zoonotic origin: SARS-2 Covid 19 and raccoon dog sequences found in the same swabs from Wuhan wet markets. Lab leak hypothesis seems mostly supported by reported suspicious behavior. I see inconclusiveness surrounding both hypotheses

[Johnny2X2X]

8. Agree

Could be either. We don’t know. Probably more likely from the market, but lab leak is still possible. Or possibly a 3rd option.

What we’re seeing though is a lot of people really emotionally invested in a lab leak.