Utter horseshit. They've already admitted to Gain-of-Function tinkering with this bug. Pompeo is either stupid, naïve, unaware of the scientific paper trail surrounding this issue, or pulling his punches so that China can save face.
Yeah, it still is because even if it came from a lab, they can still pretend to the world that they had it there "to study its architecture", not that they had it in order to maximize its deadliness. Having something isn't the same thing as weaponizing it. Pompeo's letting them get off the hook with his silly agreement that they were just benignly "studying it", not that they were trying to kill the planet with it.
Utter horseshit. They've already admitted to Gain-of-Function tinkering with this bug. Pompeo is either stupid, naïve, unaware of the scientific paper trail surrounding this issue, or pulling his punches so that China can save face.
Saying it came from the lab is not allowing China to save face.
Yeah, it still is because even if it came from a lab, they can still pretend to the world that they had it there "to study its architecture", not that they had it in order to maximize its deadliness. Having something isn't the same thing as weaponizing it. Pompeo's letting them get off the hook with his silly agreement that they were just benignly "studying it", not that they were trying to kill the planet with it.