13th Man wrote:I don't think it was a deflection tactic, It's still important to find out the true source of the virus though, whether it was genetically modified or not. There needs to be accountability if the CCP knew of this and have been trying to cover it up. imo they did.
I'm no CCP apologist - far from it (look at my posts in the HK protests threads or the NBA vs China threads, and I recognize your username from them as well), but it's becoming clearer that the level of 'cover up' of this virus was local governments not wanting to draw the Eye of Sauron, aka big daddy xi and the central government.
The whistleblower doctor was censored by local Wuhan government, and the local officials were the ones trying to cover this up and minimize it / downplay it, because getting in trouble with the central government in China is basically asking for your career to be over, and in extreme cases, worse.
The central government is almost certainly hiding things / fudging the numbers too, but, I mean, who expected transparency from China? I don't even expect it from the US - and, meeting my expectations, the US hasn't on the whole been transparent.
As for a deflection tactic, this lab-made stuff coming back up again absolutely was. It was a political tool, and it was really obvious. This stuff was talked about before, and was debunked before by actual scientists, not politicians.
People completely lapped it up and got distracted for a hot minute, no longer focusing on the domestic handling of this thing, instead having an other to point their fingers at.