> That’s like saying that if a new flu came out of Atlanta, the fact the CDC is there proves it came from a lab, and must be true because someone’s janitor cousin who worked there one summer said it was true.

Well in this case it’s more like if if a new flu burst onto the scene with the following all being true:

- the epicenter of the outbreak being within a few miles of the CDC

- the CDC working specifically on gain of function for new strains of the flu

- the CDC being cited in whistleblower reports to the outbreak for poor safety and security protocols in the years prior to the outbreak

- inability to find the natural reservoir the virus crossed over from, despite years of searching in the biggest virus hunt in human history

- the closest naturally occurring relative of the virus being found in bats that are only native in areas hundreds of miles away (in this analogy, something like the upper Midwest), that also happen to be among the species of bats being studied by the lab at the CDC

- several CDC employees being among the earliest discovered cases, so early that they occurred before the disease was even picked up in the radar and were only discovered when searching for the earliest cases

- the US government preventing any none government health officials in or out of the area of the infection for several weeks after the outbreak

- the sole other identified potential outbreak location, the wet market nearby, was completely sterilized by the US government within the first two weeks of the outbreak, over the protests of international investigators who hadn’t yet been given access to it, thereby preventing them from ever being able to confirm or deny if it was the actual ground zero of the outbreak.

“Low confidence” doesn’t mean there is a lack of evidence, it means there is a lack of direct evidence. Problem is there is a lack of direct evidence for any alternative theory as well. There is, however, and overwhelming about of circumstantial evidence supporting the lab leak. The CIA isn’t going to issue accusations like this without a smoking bullet, which they will never have.

The reality is that had this occurred under any other administration, the lab leak hypothesis wouldn’t be so taboo. But Trump is a serial conspiracy theorist and pugilistic nationalist, so the second he floated it everyone on the left, which includes much in academia, immediately disputed it in a knee jerk reaction, despite not having much evidence either way. Since then what evidence exists has increasingly supported the lab leak theory, but many are walking back from entrenched positions. If this had happened when Obama was president I don’t think anyone would be pushing back on this with the evidence that exists.