Covid is a accidental Lab leaked bioweapon

[trichrider]

Media Downplayed Or Ignored These 8 Lab Leak Theory Facts For Over A Year

(Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP) (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)
Andrew Kerr Investigative Reporter
May 27, 2021 10:40 AM ET


Numerous media outlets have published stories within the last week confirming the legitimacy of the COVID-19 lab leak theory after denigrating the hypothesis as a baseless conspiracy for the first year of the pandemic.


The theory that COVID-19 may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology has steadily gained momentum in the media and the scientific community since early January when New York magazine published a lengthy expose detailing the legitimacy of the theory.
The straw that broke the camel’s back came Sunday after The Wall Street Journal reported that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized in November 2019 with COVID-like symptoms, according to a U.S. intelligence report obtained by the outlet.
Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, who said in May 2020 it was “virtually impossible for this virus to come from the lab,” published a story on Tuesday saying the lab leak theory “suddenly became credible.”

​

But the lab leak theory was always credible. Here are eight facts that have been in the public domain for well over a year that point to the legitimacy of the lab leak theory that the media downplayed or outright ignored.

1. China arrested doctors for telling the truth about COVID-19

It was widely reported in western media that the first Chinese doctors to warn about the novel coronavirus in Wuhan were arrested and reprimanded by police for “spreading rumors online” and “severely disrupting social order.”
One of the Wuhan doctors forced to recant his early warnings about COVID-19, Li Wenliang, died from the virus in early February 2020.

Before his death, Li said he knew he would face punishment from Chinese authorities after he informed his medical school alumni in late December 2019 that he was treating patients with a new SARS-like illness. He asked his colleagues to warn their friends and family privately, but screenshots of his messages went viral within hours.
“When I saw them circulating online, I realized that it was out of my control and I would probably be punished,” Li said.

That Chinese authorities arrested and reprimanded doctors for telling the truth about COVID-19 during the earliest stages of the pandemic should be top of mind when interpreting future claims from Chinese scientists and officials about the virus.

2. Wuhan’s top bat-based coronavirus researcher said she lost sleep worrying the virus came from her lab.

China’s top virologist on bat-borne viruses, Shi Zhengli, told the Scientific American in March 2020 that the possibility of an accidental leak from her Wuhan lab was the first thing that crossed her mind when she learned of the virus’s outbreak in Wuhan in late December.
“Could they have come from our lab?” Shi, known by her colleagues as the “bat woman,” recalled thinking.

Shi said she breathed a sigh of relief when results came back showing that the sequences of the novel coronavirus did not match the viruses she and her team at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had sampled from bat caves.
“That really took a load off my mind,” Shi said. “I had not slept a wink for days.”
Shi would then tell those asking questions about her lab in connection to the COVID-19 outbreak to “shut their stinking mouths.”

“The novel 2019 coronavirus is nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilized living habits. I, Shi Zhengli, swear on my life that it has nothing to do with our laboratory,” she wrote on a Chinese social messaging app in early February 2020, according to Caixin Global. “I advise those who believe and spread rumors from harmful media sources … to shut their stinking mouths.”

3. China’s ‘Bat Woman’ expressed shock that COVID-19 broke out in Wuhan

Shi also told the Scientific American in March 2020 that she was shocked to learn of a novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, some 600 miles north of where the bats that are known to carry similar viruses actually live.
“I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China,” Shi said, adding that her studies had shown that southern China posed the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping from animals to humans.

4. Chinese researcher published — then deleted — a study concluding COVID-19 probably originated from Wuhan lab in February 2020

Botao Xiao, a researcher at the South China University of Technology published a paper alongside another Chinese researcher on Feb. 6, 2020, reporting that the horseshoe bats known to carry a viral strain that shares 96.2% similarity to the virus that causes COVID-19 live 600 miles south of Wuhan in the Yunnan province.
The researchers also cited testimony from 60 people who lived in or visited Wuhan who said the bat ‘was never a food source in the city, and no bat was traded in the market.”
“The killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan” the two Chinese researchers noted in their paper, which was originally uploaded to Research Gate.
The paper provoked stern denials from Chinese authorities that there was any accident at the Wuhan lab. The paper was removed from Research Gate on Feb. 14 or 15, according to internet archives.
Xiao told the Wall Street Journal in a Feb. 26, 2020, email that he withdrew his paper because his research “was not supported by direct proofs.”
It is not clear if Xiao has been heard from since. Xiao did not return requests for comment by the Daily Caller News Foundation when contacted in April 2020. Xiao also did not return inquiries from CNN and the Sunday Guardian, the outlets reported.

5. Deadly viruses have a history of escaping from Chinese laboratories

China has a history of letting deadly coronaviruses escape from its labs.
The first SARS virus escaped twice from the Chinese Institute of Virology in Beijing in 2004, one year after that virus had initially been contained.
It’s entirely reasonable to question whether SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — could have also escaped from a Chinese lab.

6. China deleted early samples of COVID-19

In May 2020, China confirmed that it had authorized laboratories to destroy early samples of the virus that causes COVID-19 for “biosafety reasons.”
Also in May 2020, the New York Post reported that open-source intelligence uncovered in the United Kingdom revealed that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had censored a virus database in late 2019.
Later reports would reveal that the Wuhan Institute of Virology database removed a database containing information on at least 16,000 virus samples it had studied prior the pandemic in September 2019.
Members of the World Health Organization’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in early 2021 did not even ask to review the deleted database because the sole U.S. member of the team, EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Dazsak, personally vouched for the Wuhan lab, saying the data did not contain relevant information on the pandemic’s origin.
“We did not ask to see the data,” Daszak said during a panel discussion in March. “A lot of this work is work that has been conducted with EcoHealth Alliance. I’m also part of those data and we do basically know what’s in those databases … I got to talk with both sides about the work we’ve done with Wuhan Institute of Virology and explained what’s there.”

7. Key American defender of Wuhan Lab had a clear conflict of interest

Daszak, the president of the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance, was responsible for orchestrating a statement published in The Lancet medical journal in February 2019 prior to any serious research on the origins of COVID-19 condemning “conspiracy theories” suggesting the virus doesn’t have a natural origin.
The Lancet statement was cited by numerous news outlets — and by fact check organizations to censor inquiries into the lab leak theory — during the early stages of the pandemic.
Daszak’s letter received widespread and uncritical coverage in the media despite having worked closely with the Wuhan Institute of Virology for well over a decade prior to the pandemic. His group, EcoHealth Alliance, also transferred $600,000 in taxpayer funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology between 2014 and 2019 as part of a project to study bat-based coronaviruses.
Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin highlighted Daszak’s potential conflict of interest in an opinion story published in April 2020.
A spokesman for Dazak later revealed to The Wall Street Journal in January 2021 that his statement was intended to protect Chinese scientists from online scrutiny.
“The Lancet letter was written during a time in which Chinese scientists were receiving death threats and the letter was intended as a showing of support for them as they were caught between important work trying to stop an outbreak and the crush of online harassment,” Daszak’s spokesman told The Journal.

8. Prominent American virologist said lab leak theory shouldn’t be dismissed

One of the most vocal advocates for the legitimacy of the lab leak theory, Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard H. Ebright, said publicly as early as February 2020 that the hypothesis “cannot– and should not–be dismissed.”

Ebright was quoted by The Washington Post and MSNBC during the early stages of the pandemic firmly rejecting the separate origin theory that COVID-19 is a Chinese-manufactured bioweapon.
But the outlets omitted Ebright’s stance that the lab accident theory was legitimate and should not be dismissed.
Ebright recently revealed to independent journalist Michael Tracey that he told The Washington Post in January 2020 that he was willing to be quoted on the record saying COVID-19 could have entered the human population through a lab accident.
But The Washington Post omitted Ebright’s stance on the lab leak theory in a story published Feb. 17, 2020, criticizing Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton for repeating the “conspiracy theory” that the release of COVID-19 could be connected to the Wuhan lab.
“On February 16, 2020, in an interview regarding comments by Sen. Tom Cotton, I again discussed both the genome sequence and the lab-accident hypothesis–this time, both on the record–with WaPo,” Ebright told Tracey in an email. “I was surprised that the February 17, 2020 article in WaPo quoted only my comments on the genome sequence and not my comments on the lab-accident hypothesis.”

Despite Ebright’s vocal defense of the legitimacy of the lab leak theory from the early months of the pandemic, numerous news outlets ran stories in 2020 reporting that “scientists” had debunked the lab accident theory.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/05/27/lab-leak-theory-credible-8-facts-wuhan-covid-19-coronavirus/

 

[gaiusmarius]

Chris Martenson explained it as clearly as it could be explained, about a year ago.

it is man-made and part of the explanation involves something called a PRRA cleavage site.


I had to listen to the related webcasts several times to begin to get the science.

They are in the April to June "stack" of webcasts, on the somewhat strangely named "Youtube Peak Prosperity" channel.

bro i read the theories about it being man made, im looking for the opposite.

 

[Oregonism]

15 biolevel 4 acrredited labs just in the Us. 9 federal. All able to perform gain of function work. Look a squirrel.

 

[Chi13]

Many Scientists Still Think The Coronavirus Came From Nature

Geoff Brumfie

President Biden directed the intelligence agencies to look for evidence of an accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (pictured). Many scientists still think its more likely the virus came form the wild.

This week, President Biden directed his intelligence agencies to take another look at whether the coronavirus resulted from a lab accident in China. For many, the announcement felt like a big change, putting what had been a conspiracy theory about the virus’s origins back on the table.

But not much has changed for Robert Garry, a microbiologist at Tulane University who has analyzed the genome of the coronavirus. “Nothing’s really tipped me or made me flip-flop or anything about it,” he says. “I’m more convinced than ever that this is a natural virus.”

Garry and many other scientists, including the President’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, continue to believe the preponderance of evidence points toward a natural source. That’s been the case for every previous disease known to infect humans.

Nevertheless, this week’s announcement has created room for what some researchers hope can be a more balanced discussion of the possibility of a laboratory accident. “I think it opens the door for other scientists to weigh in without being called conspiracy theorists,” says Alina Chan, a geneticist at MIT’s Broad Institute who has long argued for the laboratory theory to be more thoroughly considered.

A natural origin would be more in line with what’s come in the past. “The historical basis for pandemics evolving naturally from an animal reservoir is extremely strong,” Fauci told senators at a hearing earlier this week. Ebola, HIV and the major influenza viruses all came from nature, he said.

In the case of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Garry sees parallels to another natural outbreak. Most of the first reported cases of this virus were in wet markets in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Wet markets were also central to the outbreak of the original SARS virus, which began spreading in the early 2000s.

Back then, the virus was traced quickly. “People got lucky,” he says. “They were able to identify the restaurants the first cases ate at, and then go back to the wildlife farms where they’d bought the civets as it turns out.” Those civets had been infected by bats.

The fact that nobody’s pinpointed the source for the new coronavirus isn’t particularly unusual, adds Garry. It can take years to figure out a source; the natural source of the Ebola virus remains a mystery, for example. But he thinks it’s out there: “It’s just a matter of time before we find the progenitor in a bat or some other species.”

Ian Lipkin, at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, is another researcher who’s taken a hard look at the genetics of this virus. He says that there’s no evidence for human manipulation. In fact, the way the virus infects people is so quirky, he thinks it couldn’t have been made in a lab.

“We would not have known how to design this virus, even if we had wanted to do so,” he says. “When I say ‘we,’ I really do mean the scientific community, whether we mean scientists in Europe or the U.S. or China, for that matter.”

But he adds, it is still possible that a scientist in China could have found the coronavirus in nature and that a lab accident ensued. “It’s possible that the virus was brought into the laboratory, that it was grown inside a cell line, that somebody became infected and left the laboratory inadvertently and carried the virus with them.”

The laboratory in question, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has collected viruses from bats in the field and has published some of the genetic sequences. So far, none have matched SARS-CoV-2.

Nevertheless, “both scenarios are still on the table,” says geneticist Chan. Chan says she herself hasn’t reached any conclusions about whether a lab is responsible: “There’s nothing that’s a smoking gun,” she says.

The intelligence community is also unsure. In a brief statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that the nation’s intelligence agencies believed both a lab accident and a natural outbreak were possibilities.

Most agencies did not reach a conclusion, while two supported the natural cause theory and one the lab leak with “low/medium confidence.” That could mean that the intel is based on just a few sources, or on sources that are unreliable, says Eric Brewer, a former National Security Council staffer now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The bottom line is that there’s a lot of uncertainty,” he says.

Former President Trump frequently mentioned the lab leak theory without providing evidence, and Chan says that gave the discussion a political taint: “I was compared to insurrectionists and Qanon” for raising the possibility, she says.

She and other scientists had hoped a World Health Organization mission to China earlier this year might conduct a more serious examination of the theory. But it fell far short of her expectations because China obstructed investigators. “They always had to be chaperoned by people from the government, they were always being monitored,” she says.

Chan was one of more than a dozen scientists who signed on to a letter in the journal Science calling for a more open look at the possibility the virus came from a lab. She welcomes the intelligence review that Biden ordered and believes it may be the only way, at this stage, to gather evidence on the origins of the coronavirus. “Will China suddenly become one of the most transparent countries on earth?” she says. “I cannot imagine how that will happen.”

In the end, all three scientists agree that the available evidence is far from conclusive, and all welcome further investigation. The question of where the virus came from needs to be answered, says Chan. “Our lives depend on finding out how this virus got started,” she says, “so we can prevent another one from getting started five to 10 years from now.”
https://www.wmfe.org/many-scientists-still-think-the-coronavirus-came-from-nature/181796

 

[Chi13]

My previous post was from today. This one is over a year old, however apart from circumstantial evidence, American politics, and anti China sentiment what has changed?

Genomic Study Points to Natural Origin of COVID-19

Posted on March 26th, 2020 by Dr. Francis Collins

No matter where you go online these days, there’s bound to be discussion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Some folks are even making outrageous claims that the new coronavirus causing the pandemic was engineered in a lab and deliberately released to make people sick. A new study debunks such claims by providing scientific evidence that this novel coronavirus arose naturally.

The reassuring findings are the result of genomic analyses conducted by an international research team, partly supported by NIH. In their study in the journal Nature Medicine, Kristian Andersen, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA; Robert Garry, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans; and their colleagues used sophisticated bioinformatic tools to compare publicly available genomic data from several coronaviruses, including the new one that causes COVID-19.

The researchers began by homing in on the parts of the coronavirus genomes that encode the spike proteins that give this family of viruses their distinctive crown-like appearance. (By the way, “corona” is Latin for “crown.”) All coronaviruses rely on spike proteins to infect other cells. But, over time, each coronavirus has fashioned these proteins a little differently, and the evolutionary clues about these modifications are spelled out in their genomes.

The genomic data of the new coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 show that its spike protein contains some unique adaptations. One of these adaptations provides special ability of this coronavirus to bind to a specific protein on human cells called angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE2). A related coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in humans also seeks out ACE2.

Existing computer models predicted that the new coronavirus would not bind to ACE2 as well as the SARS virus. However, to their surprise, the researchers found that the spike protein of the new coronavirus actually bound far better than computer predictions, likely because of natural selection on ACE2 that enabled the virus to take advantage of a previously unidentified alternate binding site. Researchers said this provides strong evidence that that new virus was not the product of purposeful manipulation in a lab. In fact, any bioengineer trying to design a coronavirus that threatened human health probably would never have chosen this particular conformation for a spike protein.

The researchers went on to analyze genomic data related to the overall molecular structure, or backbone, of the new coronavirus. Their analysis showed that the backbone of the new coronavirus’s genome most closely resembles that of a bat coronavirus discovered after the COVID-19 pandemic began. However, the region that binds ACE2 resembles a novel virus found in pangolins, a strange-looking animal sometimes called a scaly anteater. This provides additional evidence that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 almost certainly originated in nature. If the new coronavirus had been manufactured in a lab, scientists most likely would have used the backbones of coronaviruses already known to cause serious diseases in humans.

So, what is the natural origin of the novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic? The researchers don’t yet have a precise answer. But they do offer two possible scenarios.

In the first scenario, as the new coronavirus evolved in its natural hosts, possibly bats or pangolins, its spike proteins mutated to bind to molecules similar in structure to the human ACE2 protein, thereby enabling it to infect human cells. This scenario seems to fit other recent outbreaks of coronavirus-caused disease in humans, such as SARS, which arose from cat-like civets; and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which arose from camels.

The second scenario is that the new coronavirus crossed from animals into humans before it became capable of causing human disease. Then, as a result of gradual evolutionary changes over years or perhaps decades, the virus eventually gained the ability to spread from human-to-human and cause serious, often life-threatening disease.

Either way, this study leaves little room to refute a natural origin for COVID-19. And that’s a good thing because it helps us keep focused on what really matters: observing good hygiene, practicing social distancing, and supporting the efforts of all the dedicated health-care professionals and researchers who are working so hard to address this major public health challenge.

Finally, next time you come across something about COVID-19 online that disturbs or puzzles you, I suggest going to FEMA’s new Coronavirus Rumor Control web site. It may not have all the answers to your questions, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction in helping to distinguish rumors from fact
https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/03/26/genomic-research-points-to-natural-origin-of-covid-19/

 

[Chi13]

Giaus, this is a rebuttal of the original Nicholas Wade article you posted at the start of the thread. I haven't included it all due to size by knock yourself out. There's a video but I haven't seen it.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 05, 2021

Lab leak conspiracy theory rears its ugly head again: this time it's Nicholas Wade of the New York TImes.

Nicholas Wade used to be a serious science writer but he lost that title many years ago when he proved that he was incapable of distinguishing fact from wishful thinking [Nicholas Wade on the Origin of Life ]. Now he's gone completely bonkers by promoting the ridiculous conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 pandemic was started when the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from a lab at the Whuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) [Origin of Covid — Following the Clues].

Nicholas Wade claims that the virologists at the WIV, led by Dr. Shi, created the SARS-CoV-2 virus by genetic engineering. Their goal, according to Wade, was to make a virus that was as deadly to humans as possible in order to study its effects in the lab. Unfortunately, the virus escaped from the lab, according to Wade, and started the pandemic.

Shi Zhengli responded to those silly accusations in July 2020 [Wuhan coronavirus hunter Shi Zhengli speaks out].

On 15 July, Shi emailed Science answers to a series of questions about the virus' origin and her research. In them, she hit back at speculation that the virus leaked from WIV. She and her colleagues discovered the virus in late 2019, she says, in samples from patients who had a pneumonia of unknown origin. “Before that, we had never been in contact with or studied this virus, nor did we know of its existence,” Shi wrote.

“U.S. President Trump's claim that SARS-CoV-2 was leaked from our institute totally contradicts the facts,” she added. “It jeopardizes and affects our academic work and personal life. He owes us an apology.”​

Why is this a conspiracy theory? Because the speculation has been investigated by WHO scientists who found no evidence to support it. They saw that the lab protocols at the Institute were very good, as you would expect for a world class lab that was studying dangerous viruses that were known to cause pandemics. Futhermore, none of the workers at the lab tested postive for COVID-19 and none of them were studying any virus that resembled SARS-CoV-19. So, in order for the lab leak hypothesis to be true there has to have been a massive coverup by a very large number of people. That's what makes it a conspriacy theory.

Nicholas Wade gets a lot of his information from Richard Ebright who has been promoting the lab leak conspiracy theory for the past year. Ebright thinks the WHO investigators "... were willing—and in at least one case, enthusiastic—participants in disinformation" [An Interview with Richard Ebright: The WHO Investigation Members Were “participants in disinformation”]. This is classic conspiracy theory stuff: everyone who disagrees with you is part of the conspiracy.

If you still think the lab leak conspiracy theory is true then I urge you to watch this video of a talk by Professor Edward ("Eddy") Holmes, the 2020 New South Wales (Australia) scientist of the year and an expert on human viruses, especially the coronoviruses [The Discovery and Origins of SARS-CoV-2]. He explains why the viruses are likely to orginate in bats and explains why this particular virus started off in bats but probably passed though an intermediate host before reaching humans. (His preferred intermediate host is racoon dogs and he explains why he thinks this is likely.) He explains why the sequence of the virus is entrely consistent with a natural origin. He describes his field work in China and Southeast Asia and his collaborations with the expert scientists in China, including those at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Holmes, addreses the conspiracy theory at 41:45 minutes into the talk so you can skip rght to there if you like—although I don't recommend it because there's lots of useful information in the first 40 minutes. Here's why he rejects that cosnspiracy theory and why you should too. These are the facts, according to Holmes. I agree with him.

• There's "no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is engineered (and no reason to bioengineer a random bat virus)." Holmes calls this idea is "absolute nonsense." I'm guessing he won't be a fan of Nicholas Wade's article.
• "Bat virus RaTG13 is not the direct ancestor of SAR-CoV-2—all the components of the virus exist in nature."
• "No evidence of a secret SARS-CoV-2-like virus kept at the WIV (and no reason to keep it a secret before the pandemic)." The scientists at WIV say that they were not studying such a virus and Holmes says, "Frankly, I believe them." Nicholas Wade thinks they are lying but offers no proof and no reason to justify the lie.
• The SARS-CoV-2 virus is probably not directly from bats and WIV was only studying bat viruses. Furthermore, the virus is probably not from Yunnan province where the Wuhan Institute of Virology is located.
• "SARS-CoV-2 was not perfectly adapted to humans on first emergence and appears to be a "generalist" virus." Nicholas Wade is wrong about this as well.
• "Cases near WIV only appeared later in the outbreak." The first cases in Wuhan appear in the market, specifically in the area where live animals are sold. This strongly suggests that the virus came from animals in the market and that it originated in those animals somewhere else. There were cases in December 2019 that were not linked to the market but they were nowhere near the WIV.
• "No evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection at WIH—staff were PCR/antibody negative." Holmes says that if this is true then that rules out the lab leak hypothesis automatically. He's says that either this is the biggest coverup in history and they're all lying or there's no evidence at all that the virus was ever in the lab. He concludes that the virus did not come from the lab but he's sure that the conspiracy theory is not going to go away anytime soon.

Holmes is right. The conspiracy theory is not going away because its proponents think that all Chinese are evil and can't be trusted. Those conspiracy believers are wrong. Please don't spread this ridiculous idea; it makes you no better than QAnon cultists.

If you're really interested in the facts then there are several articles on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 that you should read before falling for the lab leak conspiracy thoery. Here's one.
https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2021/05/lab-leak-conspiracy-theory-rears-its.html

 

[troutman]

I think Dr. Fauci should fry.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/26/fauc...-funding-.html

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/wor...bac25e372a1b8a

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmfdGjRf4Zc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbRiNxaoMRw

 

[Microbeman]

Giaus, this is a rebuttal of the original Nicholas Wade article you posted at the start of the thread. I haven't included it all due to size by knock yourself out. There's a video but I haven't seen it.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 05, 2021

Lab leak conspiracy theory rears its ugly head again: this time it's Nicholas Wade of the New York TImes.

Nicholas Wade used to be a serious science writer but he lost that title many years ago when he proved that he was incapable of distinguishing fact from wishful thinking [Nicholas Wade on the Origin of Life ]. Now he's gone completely bonkers by promoting the ridiculous conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 pandemic was started when the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from a lab at the Whuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) [Origin of Covid — Following the Clues].

Nicholas Wade claims that the virologists at the WIV, led by Dr. Shi, created the SARS-CoV-2 virus by genetic engineering. Their goal, according to Wade, was to make a virus that was as deadly to humans as possible in order to study its effects in the lab. Unfortunately, the virus escaped from the lab, according to Wade, and started the pandemic.

Shi Zhengli responded to those silly accusations in July 2020 [Wuhan coronavirus hunter Shi Zhengli speaks out].

On 15 July, Shi emailed Science answers to a series of questions about the virus' origin and her research. In them, she hit back at speculation that the virus leaked from WIV. She and her colleagues discovered the virus in late 2019, she says, in samples from patients who had a pneumonia of unknown origin. “Before that, we had never been in contact with or studied this virus, nor did we know of its existence,” Shi wrote.

“U.S. President Trump's claim that SARS-CoV-2 was leaked from our institute totally contradicts the facts,” she added. “It jeopardizes and affects our academic work and personal life. He owes us an apology.”​

Why is this a conspiracy theory? Because the speculation has been investigated by WHO scientists who found no evidence to support it. They saw that the lab protocols at the Institute were very good, as you would expect for a world class lab that was studying dangerous viruses that were known to cause pandemics. Futhermore, none of the workers at the lab tested postive for COVID-19 and none of them were studying any virus that resembled SARS-CoV-19. So, in order for the lab leak hypothesis to be true there has to have been a massive coverup by a very large number of people. That's what makes it a conspriacy theory.

Nicholas Wade gets a lot of his information from Richard Ebright who has been promoting the lab leak conspiracy theory for the past year. Ebright thinks the WHO investigators "... were willing—and in at least one case, enthusiastic—participants in disinformation" [An Interview with Richard Ebright: The WHO Investigation Members Were “participants in disinformation”]. This is classic conspiracy theory stuff: everyone who disagrees with you is part of the conspiracy.

If you still think the lab leak conspiracy theory is true then I urge you to watch this video of a talk by Professor Edward ("Eddy") Holmes, the 2020 New South Wales (Australia) scientist of the year and an expert on human viruses, especially the coronoviruses [The Discovery and Origins of SARS-CoV-2]. He explains why the viruses are likely to orginate in bats and explains why this particular virus started off in bats but probably passed though an intermediate host before reaching humans. (His preferred intermediate host is racoon dogs and he explains why he thinks this is likely.) He explains why the sequence of the virus is entrely consistent with a natural origin. He describes his field work in China and Southeast Asia and his collaborations with the expert scientists in China, including those at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Holmes, addreses the conspiracy theory at 41:45 minutes into the talk so you can skip rght to there if you like—although I don't recommend it because there's lots of useful information in the first 40 minutes. Here's why he rejects that cosnspiracy theory and why you should too. These are the facts, according to Holmes. I agree with him.

• There's "no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is engineered (and no reason to bioengineer a random bat virus)." Holmes calls this idea is "absolute nonsense." I'm guessing he won't be a fan of Nicholas Wade's article.
• "Bat virus RaTG13 is not the direct ancestor of SAR-CoV-2—all the components of the virus exist in nature."
• "No evidence of a secret SARS-CoV-2-like virus kept at the WIV (and no reason to keep it a secret before the pandemic)." The scientists at WIV say that they were not studying such a virus and Holmes says, "Frankly, I believe them." Nicholas Wade thinks they are lying but offers no proof and no reason to justify the lie.
• The SARS-CoV-2 virus is probably not directly from bats and WIV was only studying bat viruses. Furthermore, the virus is probably not from Yunnan province where the Wuhan Institute of Virology is located.
• "SARS-CoV-2 was not perfectly adapted to humans on first emergence and appears to be a "generalist" virus." Nicholas Wade is wrong about this as well.
• "Cases near WIV only appeared later in the outbreak." The first cases in Wuhan appear in the market, specifically in the area where live animals are sold. This strongly suggests that the virus came from animals in the market and that it originated in those animals somewhere else. There were cases in December 2019 that were not linked to the market but they were nowhere near the WIV.
• "No evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection at WIH—staff were PCR/antibody negative." Holmes says that if this is true then that rules out the lab leak hypothesis automatically. He's says that either this is the biggest coverup in history and they're all lying or there's no evidence at all that the virus was ever in the lab. He concludes that the virus did not come from the lab but he's sure that the conspiracy theory is not going to go away anytime soon.

Holmes is right. The conspiracy theory is not going away because its proponents think that all Chinese are evil and can't be trusted. Those conspiracy believers are wrong. Please don't spread this ridiculous idea; it makes you no better than QAnon cultists.

If you're really interested in the facts then there are several articles on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 that you should read before falling for the lab leak conspiracy thoery. Here's one.
https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2021/05/lab-leak-conspiracy-theory-rears-its.html

Nothing very conclusive.

 

[trichrider]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJIi_DotSB4

DURC
Dual Use Research of Concern

full congressional testimony:
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/templates/watch.cfm?id=ED4D5558-5056-A032-5232-D18740F77AC6

psychopath fraudci

 

[gaiusmarius]

Nothing very conclusive.

i got through the first article kindly shared by Chi and came to the same conclusion, lots of details we now know, are just not explained in a better way then what Wade did. they just say its not true, but don't explain why its not true and what the true explanation is. apparently the bat lady herself was shitting bricks for a while thinking it might be a lab leak, so her denials by them selves aren't that potent. she has a great interest in any lab leak staying secret after all. i want an article explaining how the corona virus naturally occurring in bats changed from being a bat virus to being a super human spreading virus, why is the sequence pointing at man made methods of production? why are the Chinese being super secretive about the whole thing and not allowing access to the raw data? why is the spike protein attached exactly where humans have patented inserting it? these and many other points and questions have not been answered by just denying it could be a lab leak. give us a better explanation that fits the known facts, including the fact that no path of mutation from a bat suitable virus to a human suitable virus has been found, why are non of the early cases mutations? how can it spring up from 1 day to the next perfectly adapted to human transmission? while also no longer being transmittable by and to bats, lmao. wtf?

 

[VenerableHippie]

I think the idea that this is a biological weapon is laughable. A weapon that targets the fragile and elderly. There really isn't evidence that this is a lab accident either, although I guess it can't be dismissed as a possibility.

As an Australian, I have been slightly alarmed by talk from our ministers, of war with China, and the Chinese response. Speaking of iron ore; prior to WW2 there was a union dispute where unionists refused to load iron ore bound for Japan in 1938. The unionists eventually did load the iron ore and a year later Japan was trying to invade Australia likely with weapons made from said iron ore. Can't help but wonder about the parrallels today. I hope it doesn't come to war as China would swat us like a fly, and later dine on our lobsters and wine.

Yep. Get'n fat on Aussie produce. (Have you noticed Chinese people are now fat? EG: the women have breasts nowadays. but then I 'm old but can still recall lotsa stuff.) I wonder if the I Ching is still used to predict the best political policies in Shina? I think not. More like Mein Kampf. (The Chi has gone from Chinese politics,Chi ...)

 

[Chi13]

i got through the first article kindly shared by Chi and came to the same conclusion, lots of details we now know, are just not explained in a better way then what Wade did. they just say its not true, but don't explain why its not true and what the true explanation is. apparently the bat lady herself was shitting bricks for a while thinking it might be a lab leak, so her denials by them selves aren't that potent. she has a great interest in any lab leak staying secret after all. i want an article explaining how the corona virus naturally occurring in bats changed from being a bat virus to being a super human spreading virus, why is the sequence pointing at man made methods of production? why are the Chinese being super secretive about the whole thing and not allowing access to the raw data? why is the spike protein attached exactly where humans have patented inserting it? these and many other points and questions have not been answered by just denying it could be a lab leak. give us a better explanation that fits the known facts, including the fact that no path of mutation from a bat suitable virus to a human suitable virus has been found, why are non of the early cases mutations? how can it spring up from 1 day to the next perfectly adapted to human transmission? while also no longer being transmittable by and to bats, lmao. wtf?

Thanks for at least reading one. I suggest you look at this video, although it is an hour long but it is a scientist who has had extensive contact with China, Wuhan, and the wet market over a few years both prior and following the covid outbreak. He says there is a gap in the evolution of the virus, but makes educated guesses as to the likely culprit. If you can't look at the whole thing from 41 minutes, and also talks of the escaped from lab theory at 42.30 specifically.
https://attend.mediahouse.com.au/bre...bYI94RPm4Hx5aA

And also my earlier link
The fact that nobody’s pinpointed the source for the new coronavirus isn’t particularly unusual, adds Garry. It can take years to figure out a source; the natural source of the Ebola virus remains a mystery, for example. But he thinks it’s out there: “It’s just a matter of time before we find the progenitor in a bat or some other species.”

 

[Chi13]

Yep. Get'n fat on Aussie produce. (Have you noticed Chinese people are now fat? EG: the women have breasts nowadays. but then I 'm old but can still recall lotsa stuff.) I wonder if the I Ching is still used to predict the best political policies in Shina? I think not. More like Mein Kampf. (The Chi has gone from Chinese politics,Chi ...)

My understanding is Chi did literally leave China bound for places like Taiwan and Malaysia following the Communist takeover, when many practicioners of arts like Tai Chi were repressed.

 

[mexcurandero420]

 

[mexcurandero420]

​
image widget

 

[gaiusmarius]

Thanks for at least reading one. I suggest you look at this video, although it is an hour long but it is a scientist who has had extensive contact with China, Wuhan, and the wet market over a few years both prior and following the covid outbreak. He says there is a gap in the evolution of the virus, but makes educated guesses as to the likely culprit. If you can't look at the whole thing from 41 minutes, and also talks of the escaped from lab theory at 42.30 specifically.
https://attend.mediahouse.com.au/bre...bYI94RPm4Hx5aA

And also my earlier link
The fact that nobody’s pinpointed the source for the new coronavirus isn’t particularly unusual, adds Garry. It can take years to figure out a source; the natural source of the Ebola virus remains a mystery, for example. But he thinks it’s out there: “It’s just a matter of time before we find the progenitor in a bat or some other species.”

i just read the second article. starting to see wade and your guy are working from different facts. wade says bat woman was studying corona viruses and how to make them more transmissible to humans, your guy say no? what does the public record say? it says yes. even fauci didnt deny this aspect when questioned by rand paul in congress.

then he claims the precursors to covid 19 just hasn't been found, even though they went through that farmers market with a tooth comb and tested the animals, they never found the patient 1 so to speak.

he also says covid 19 is not specially suited to human to human transmission and could cross species easy. again wade says the latests studies on this subject have not even managed to give covid 19 to bats.

points are made based on the Chinese say so, like no workers at the wuhan bio weapons lab had antibodies. this might be true or it might not be, even the who admitted the Chinese were not providing them raw data, but curated data of a limited nature.

if the lab leak is so impossible why is China not providing the raw data to researchers

this article was obviously written very early on, when a lot less information had become public, as a result we have contradictions about what the original facts were. i find this to be fucking annoying to be honest. it seems to be a weapon of choice for those hiding things, start flooding the public sphere with so much contradicting "facts" that no one can make head or tail of things without being a specialist in the field with the true facts on your desk in front of you.

 

[trichrider]

Virologists Say Genetic "Fingerprints" Prove COVID-19 Man-Made, 'No Credible Natural Ancestor'

by Tyler Durden
Sunday, May 30, 2021 - 10:33 AM

Two notable virologists claim to have found "unique fingerprints" on COVID-19 samples that only could have arisen from laboratory manipulation, according to an explosive 22-page paper obtained by the Daily Mail.

The paper's authors, Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen (left) and British Professor Angus Dalgleish (right) via the Daily MailBritish professor Angus Dalgleish - best known for creating the world's first 'HIV vaccine', and Norwegian virologist Dr. Birger Sørensen - chair of pharmaceutical company, Immunor, who has published 31 peer-reviewed papers and holds several patents, wrote that while analyzing virus samples last year, the pair discovered "unique fingerprints" in the form of "six inserts" created through gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

They also conclude that "SARS-Coronavirus-2 has "no credible natural ancestor" and that it is "beyond reasonable doubt" that the virus was created via "laboratory manipulation."

DailyMail.com exclusively obtained the 22-page paper which is set to be published in the scientific journal Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery. In it, researchers describe their months-long 'forensic analysis' into experiments done at the Wuhan lab between 2002 and 2019 (Daily Mail)

A 'GenBank' table included in the paper lists various coronavirus strains, with the dates they were collected and then when they were submitted to the gene bank, showing a delay of several years for some (Daily Mail)
Last year, Sørensen told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that COVID-19 has properties which have 'never been detected in nature,' and that the United States has 'collaborated for many years on coronavirus research through "gain of function" studies with China.

One diagram of the coronavirus shows six 'fingerprints' identified by the two scientists, which they say show the virus must have been made in a lab (Daily Mail)

A second diagram showed how a row of four amino acids found on the SARS-Cov-2 spike have a positive charge that clings to human cells like a magnet, making the virus extremely infectious (Daily Mail)The paper detailing their months-long "forensic analysis," which looked back at experiments done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology between 2002 and 2019, is set to be published in the scientific journal Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery.
More via the Mail:

Digging through archives of journals and databases, Dalgleish and Sørensen pieced together how Chinese scientists, some working in concert with American universities, allegedly built the tools to create the coronavirus.
Much of the work was centered around controversial 'Gain of Function' research – temporarily outlawed in the US under the Obama administration.
Gain of Function involves tweaking naturally occurring viruses to make them more infectious, so that they can replicate in human cells in a lab, allowing the virus's potential effect on humans to be studied and better understood.
Dalgleish and Sørensen claim that scientists working on Gain of Function projects took a natural coronavirus 'backbone' found in Chinese cave bats and spliced onto it a new 'spike', turning it into the deadly and highly transmissible SARS-Cov-2.
One tell-tale sign of alleged manipulation the two men highlighted was a row of four amino acids they found on the SARS-Cov-2 spike.
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Sørensen said the amino acids all have a positive charge, which cause the virus to tightly cling to the negatively charged parts of human cells like a magnet, and so become more infectious.
But because, like magnets, the positively charged amino acids repel each other, it is rare to find even three in a row in naturally occurring organisms, while four in a row is 'extremely unlikely,' the scientist said.
'The laws of physics mean that you cannot have four positively charged amino acids in a row. The only way you can get this is if you artificially manufacture it,' Dalgleish told DailyMail.com.
Their new paper says these features of SARS-Cov-2 are 'unique fingerprints' which are 'indicative of purposive manipulation', and that 'the likelihood of it being the result of natural processes is very small.'
'A natural virus pandemic would be expected to mutate gradually and become more infectious but less pathogenic which is what many expected with the COVID-19 pandemic but which does not appear to have happened,' the scientists wrote.
'The implication of our historical reconstruction, we posit now beyond reasonable doubt, of the purposively manipulated chimeric virus SARS-CoV-2 makes it imperative to reconsider what types of Gain of Function experiments it is morally acceptable to undertake.​

The study concluded 'SARS-Coronavirus-2 has no credible natural ancestor' and that it is 'beyond reasonable doubt' that the virus was created through 'laboratory manipulation' (Daily Mail)When Sørensen and Dalgleish floated their findings last year, it was 'debunked' with the thinnest of logic - however former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove pointed to the pair's findings as an "important" development which could prove that the pandemic may have originated at the WIV.

Sørensen and Dalgleish aren't the first scientists to find unusual features within COVID-19. Last June, the Daily Telegraph reported that there are two unique features to COVID-19:
First, the virus binds more strongly to human ACE2 enzymes than any other species, including bats.
Second, SARS-CoV-2 has a "furin cleavage site" missing in its closes bat-coronavirus relative, RaTG-13, which makes it significantly more infectious - a finding we reported in late February.

According to Israeli geneticist, Dr. Ronen Shemesh, the Furin site is the most unusual finding.
"I believe that the most important issue about the differences between ALL coronavirus types is the insertion of a Furin protease cleavage site at the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2," he said. "Such an insertion is very rare in evolution, the addition of such 4 Amino acids alone in the course of only 20 years is very unlikely."
"There are many reasons to believe that the COVID-19 generating SARS-CoV-2 was generated in a lab. Most probably by methods of genetic engineering," he said, adding "I believe that this is the only way an insertion like the FURIN protease cleavage site could have been introduced directly at the right place and become effective."

Dr Shemesh, who has a PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and over 21 years of experience in the field of drug discovery and development, said it is even “more unlikely” that this insertion happened in exactly the right place of the cleavage site of the spike protein - which is where it would need to occur to make the virus more infectious. -Daily Telegraph​

"What makes it even more suspicious is that fact that this insertion not only occurred on the right place and in the right time, but also turned the cleavage site from an Serine protease cleavage site to a FURIN cleavage site," he added.

In January 2020, a team of Indian scientists wrote in a now-retracted paper that the coronavirus may have been genetically engineered to incorporate parts of the HIV genome, writing "This uncanny similarity of novel inserts in the 2019- nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag is unlikely to be fortuitous in nature," meaning - it was unlikely to have occurred naturally.
The next month, a team of researchers in Nankai University noted that COVID-19 has an 'HIV-like mutation' that allows it to quickly enter the human body by binding with a receptor called ACE2 on a cell membrane.

Other highly contagious viruses, including HIV and Ebola, target an enzyme called furin, which works as a protein activator in the human body. Many proteins are inactive or dormant when they are produced and have to be “cut” at specific points to activate their various functions.
When looking at the genome sequence of the new coronavirus, Professor Ruan Jishou and his team at Nankai University in Tianjin found a section of mutated genes that did not exist in Sars, but were similar to those found in HIV and Ebola. -SCMP
​

According to the Nankai University study, the furin binding method is "100 to 1,000 times as efficient' as SARS at entering cells.
"This protein cleaving protein is highly promiscuous, it’s found in many human tissues and cell types and is involved in many OTHER virus types activation and infection mechanisms (it is involved in HIV, Herpes, Ebola and Dengue virus mechanisms)," said Dr. Shemesh. "If I was trying to engineer a virus strain with a higher affinity and infective potential to humans, I would do exactly that: I would add a Furin Cleavage site directly at the original less effective and more cell specific cleavage site."
Meanwhile, Flinders University Professor Nikolai Petrovsky found last year either "a remarkable coincidence or a sign of human intervention" within COVID-19 telling the Telegraph that COVID-19 is "exquisitely adapted to humans."

Professor Nikolai Petrovsky"We really don’t know where this virus came from - that’s the truth. The two possibilities is that it was a chance transmission of a virus...the other possibility is that it was an accidental release of the virus from a laboratory," he said, adding "One of the possibilities is that an animal host was infected by two coronaviruses at the same time and COVID-19. The same process can happen in a petri-dish."
"In other words COVID-19 could have been created from that recombination event in an animal host or it could have occurred in a cell-culture experiment. I’m certainly very much in favour of a scientific investigation. Its only objective should be to get to the bottom of how did this pandemic happen and how do we prevent a future pandemic."
Keep in mind - reporting any of this last year was punishable by social media banishment, demonetiziation, and hit-piece articles from propagandists peddling CCP talking points.

 

[trichrider]

https://twitter.com/jsdfposjpqyuee1/...80760903561220

Dr. Lawrence Sellin Provides a 2-Minute Video Showing Origins of COVID-19 and Its Connections to China’s PLA Bio-Warfare Department and CCP Civil-Military Fusion Program


By Joe Hoft
Published May 30, 2021 at 9:00am
165 Comments

Col. Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. shared in a tweet this morning the origin of COVID-19 and its connections to the PLA Bio-Warfare Department and the CCP Civil-Military Fusion Program.

Dr. Sellin‘s update about the origin of COVID-19, the PLA biowarfare program, and CCP civil-military fusion program is in the following tweet.

This is a superbly enhanced rendition of the content of my video with excellent graphics to emphasize the main points. I thank #COVID19 detective @jsdfposjpqyuee1 for posting it.#CCPVirus #coronavirus https://t.co/zq5XAGnsvT
— Dr. Lawrence Sellin (@LawrenceSellin) May 30, 2021​

You may need to review this a few times to fully understand China’s involvement in COVID-19.
link at top

 

[Amynamous]

Interesting
I’ll wait for the real scientists to chime in though before making any conclusion.

If this is true, and the US either funded or supported this research, that would be pretty embarrassing for Fauci and trump. That would make the worldwide pandemic their fault.

 

[exploziv]

Is there any credible mainstream news site where we can read more about the reserch by Sørensen and Dalgleish?