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Comment by lend000 | Hacker News Reader

The HN crowd is not one to support conspiracy theories, but if the CCP were to strategically release a virus into the world, what better way to give them a competitive advantage than to give a non-negligible percentage of their global competitors chronic fatigue?

Speaking as someone in the tech space still suffering from fatigue and brain fog (with no real signs of improvement) 7 months after infection. My productivity has certainly gone down.

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Why would they release it among their own people first?

If this were Tom Clancy or a James Bond 007 plot ... you'd release a less infectious/harmful version locally otherwise it would be too obvious and you might get nuked.

If there were a less harmful version....

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/coronavirus-aggressive-l-t...

I think this is the D vs G strains?

https://www.biospace.com/article/mutated-covid-19-viral-stra...

I'm not denying the plausibility that it was simply a mistake with a highly contagious virus being studied in their Wuhan lab, but they would have certainly been aware they would have a much better chance at curbing the virus than countries that support more individual freedom. Releasing it there first, if intentional, would further signal it was an accident and prevent severe diplomatic fallout.

> I'm not denying the plausibility that it was simply a mistake with a highly contagious virus being studied in their Wuhan lab

There are two labs in Wuhan. The institute of virology, and the wuhan CDC. The institute of virology is 12 km from where the virus started spreading. The CDC lab -which does not study viruses- was the one at the center of the spread.

The amount of bullshit associated with the origins of the virus is embarrassing. It would be one thing if it was planted propaganda- there are obvious lies and embellishments, but the sheer number of mistranslations, misunderstandings, and hilariously implausible theories taken as fact is insane. Potholer54 did a rather methodical takedown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab-r0capbzk

> but if the CCP were to strategically release a virus into the world, what better way to give them a competitive advantage than to give a non-negligible percentage of their global competitors chronic fatigue?

Viewed through that lens, it is surely a cunning plot of Mother Earth do bring down our insane resource consumption, no? Maybe a bat conspiracy against humanity?

So many seemingly intelligent people are incredibly naive about the number of real world conspiracies that have come to light. You probably would have made a similar comment about MK-Ultra or Operation Sea Spray before the documents were published [0]. Now imagine what a totalitarian government might do.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray

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