You're listening to a bonus episode of The Daily Article podcast, presented by the Denison

Forum and featuring Dr. Jim Denison.

Hi, I'm Jim Denison, the Denison Forum, and this is the Daily Article Special Edition

for April 16, 2020.

China's making headlines for all the wrong reasons today.

U.S. intelligence and national security officials say the United States government is considering the possibility that the novel coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory rather than in a market, though sources say it's premature to draw any conclusions. This is one of several theories being pursued by investigators as they

attempt to determine the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. does not believe the virus was

associated with bio-weapons research, but intelligence officials are investigating whether the virus

originated when someone was infected in a Chinese lab through an accident or poor handling of

materials and may have

then infected others. In related news, an Associated Press article notes that the Chinese government

waited six crucial days after determining they were facing a pandemic before warning the public.

During that time, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for thousands of people, and millions began traveling through the Lunar New Year. By the time President Xi Jinping warned the public on January 20th, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence. Other experts note that the Chinese government may have waited

on warning the public to avoid mass hysteria and that it did act quickly in private during that time,

but the Associated Press claims that China's rigid controls on information, bureaucratic hurdles,

and a reluctance to send bad news up the chain of command muffled early warnings.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Berks told ABC's The View Yesterday.

I think once this is over, we'll be able to look back and see, did China and the WHO

say and do everything to alert the rest of the world to the nuances of this virus, because

when it first explodes, someone

had to have known that there was human to human transmission.

This tiny virus, wherever and however it originated, has devastated the world in ways

...