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Comment by MilnerRoute | Hacker News Reader

To your point, CNN adds an interesting detail which isn't being as widely reported:

The workers at the lab "were tested and there was no evidence found of Covid antibodies."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/politics/us-intelligence-repo...

So theoretically it's possible that three workers at the lab were sick -- and hospitalized -- but with, say the seasonal flu. The original reports from the State Department about this even specified that the workers had been sick with symptoms "consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness."

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-report-of-illnesses-at...

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That’s a pretty important point to leave out. Although given the accuracy of the early antibody tests… it doesn’t rule anything out completely.

>The workers at the lab "were tested and there was no evidence found of Covid antibodies."

Tested by whom and how? If a trustworthy disinterested party positively identified the workers, took their blood samples, and tested them via a procedure with a low false-negative rate, then the test results are meaningful. Otherwise, there is reason for doubt.

Then there is no need to argue anymore, my friend.

Sure, I'll grant you that there's reason for doubting that the lab workers' tests were authentic. But I guess by that same logic, just trying to be accurate and fair here, there'd also be a reason for doubt -- and also for genuine credibility -- in all three of these scenarios.

1. The testing showing no Covid-19 antibodies was fraudulent and faked.

2. That testing was not faked. The workers did not have Covid-19 antibodies; their illness was caused by some other illness.

3. The report of the lab workers' illness is faked. (It came from a conservative newspaper, from unnamed officials citing an unnamed international partner -- where somewhere along that chain, someone had the proper motivation.)

I'm not arguing for any one of these things. We just honestly do not know.

They were tested back in November for antibodies for something that China won't acknowledge even existed yet and we didn't put a name on for another month or two?

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