"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
These days everyone is embroiled in ways to deal with the all-consuming COVID-19 pandemic.
The Republicans are apparently trying to get very rich off of a Senate stimulus bill, and the media headlines misleadingly blame Senate Democrats for blocking relief to needy Americans.
President Trump has given seven years of monopoly rights to Gilead Sciences for the potentially effective drug remdesivir against COVID-19.
COVID-19 has reached pandemic levels by spreading worldwide. But, it reportedly had its origins in the Huanan Market in Wuhan, China.
The conspiracy theory that this virus was created in the laboratory is ridiculed, naturally. These types of theories are rampant, especially during stressful times. So, in order to put these rumors to rest there have been a couple of articles explaining why these claims are false.
This March 17, 2020 Science Daily article, COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200317175442.htm
which interestingly refers to an article published on March 17, 2020 in Nature Medicine, The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985?fbclid=IwAR2qll41ezSENE2SyScqYvXP29ayq1ulvswxAhqQZmA1kJ2a16lsM2bBezM
This is very interesting because it seems to contradict a research article published on November 9, 2015 in that same medical journal Nature Medicine, A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985?fbclid=IwAR2qll41ezSENE2SyScqYvXP29ayq1ulvswxAhqQZmA1kJ2a16lsM2bBezM
The 2020 article has 30 technical references and a few additional acknowledgements, but no reference to the 2015 article. I thought that strange.
Now, both of these articles are technical in their language and concepts, and would discourage the casual reader. And, the 2015 article was difficult to find. They are not intended for perusal by the layman. One can, however, with some knowledge of microbiology and the patience to look up the technical terms, get a grasp of these articles.
Without describing my point-by-point comparison of the specific differences in these two articles, I would simply say the newer article is an effort to discredit rumors arising from the older article. I invite you to do the comparison for yourself.
Why would someone go through the effort to publish, just days ago, an ostensibly reputable and scientific article to quash those notions that the virus was artificially created?
I answer this by referring you to the events that I started this piece with....
There are opportunities for even greater wealth for the elite facilitated by the Republican-controlled Senate. There are billions of dollars to be made from the opportune discovery of a vaccine. There is widespread chaos. There is panic and desperation. There is the discrediting by the party in power of the opposition party. There are efforts by the DOJ to further limit our constitutional rights by suspending habeas corpus.
Did we just arrive in our current situation by a quirk of fate, and those in power recognized the opportunities to be seized? How could it be otherwise than chance?
I posit an alternative explanation. Namely, considering the research done by Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi* et.al. that is described in that 2015 research paper, it seems possible that this virus had already been created and kept available for just the right moment.
One might go so far as to call it a "Reichstag Moment". https://www.britannica.com/event/Reichstag-fire