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Comment by jandrewrogers | Hacker News Reader

US intelligence likely has more evidence than they will publicly discuss. It is a matter of public record that parts of US intelligence (not CIA) had been tracking COVID in China since at least November of 2019. That they coincidentally happened to be johnny-on-the-spot when the initial infection(s) happened, long before anyone was paying attention or trying to create a narrative, suggests that they probably have more context around the conditions of the initial infections than they will ever disclose. How they managed to be "right place, right time" to observe the initial stages raises all kinds of interesting questions that aren't going to be answered.

However, what the (classified) evidence indicates is somewhat separate from whatever public posture the CIA finds useful to take.

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> It is a matter of public record that parts of US intelligence (not CIA) had been tracking COVID in China since at least November of 2019.

What's public record is that ABC News reported[1] that two anonymous officials claimed there was an internal intelligence report in late November discussing an outbreak in China, and that it was briefed up the chain. All other news outlets then picked it up, with attribution (ABC News says someone else says...) buried deep in the text per usual. The report was immediately denied publicly by various officials and in over 4 years has never been corroborated, not even with other anonymous sources.

Plus, even if it were true, what's the relevance? It originally made headlines because it implied the Trump administration was slow to react; in particular, that they possibly had as many as 4 additional weeks in which to begin preparations. But it doesn't speak to origin. Most advocates for both the natural and lab-leak arguments all agree that the COVID-19 outbreak began sometime in Fall 2019. It's not a point of contention except possibly when comparing one overspecified theory against another overspecified, straw man theory. There are so many degrees of freedom to either theory (or rather, group of theories) that an early or late start doesn't significantly weigh in favor of one or the other.

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-c...

They could as well say "We aren't sharing our real sources, but we have high confidence."

But they are saying that they have low confidence, and that there is no new evidence that changes anything.

They're just changing the way they're biased, because they think that the lab's conditions weren't particularly safe.

But then, we might as well expect that dozens of dangerous viruses should've gotten out.

Topic aside, it is often strategically useful in these types of contexts to convey lower confidence than you actually have. Saying you have high confidence without the ability to provide the reason encourages other parties to wonder whence that confidence comes, which may induce them to search for an answer you don’t want them to search for. There are many audiences for these public statements and you have to thread the needle of desired effect without unintended side-effect. Ambiguity is an advantage.

There are also many cases where adversaries both know the true story, and know the other knows the true story, but neither side finds it in their strategic interest to publish the truth e.g. the optics are terrible for both for different reasons.

That said, this particular case of the CIA publishing a report seems performative for domestic politics rather than strategic, which also happens all the time. There was nothing new or novel. The internal view of the intelligence community has been pretty consistent for years.

There are documented cases of coronavirus leaks from labs in China, but not dozens. Then again, there aren't dozens of SARS either.

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