Joe Rogan on covid: what the evidence says · JRE #2341
SUBJECT: COVID
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
Well, the pandemic, the problem with that is it's engineered. Like, people actually made that virus and Obama tried to stop that gain of function shit back in 2014.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
The claim combines two separate assertions. The second is accurate: on October 17, 2014, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced a pause on federal funding for certain gain-of-function experiments that could make influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses more pathogenic or transmissible in mammals via the respiratory route, paired with a deliberative risk-benefit review. The first assertion, that SARS-CoV-2 was deliberately engineered by people, is not supported by the scientific evidence: the genomic analysis in Nature Medicine (The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2) concluded the virus is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus, and the WHO advisory group (SAGO) found no evidence that experimental manipulation was more likely than natural mutation or recombination. Note that the deliberate-engineering claim is distinct from an accidental leak of a naturally occurring virus, which remains unresolved. Overall the statement is mixed: the 2014 funding pause is accurate, but the assertion that the virus was engineered is unsupported.