CrimsonPhantom
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WHO, China and Reality
Quote:A new “joint WHO-China study” into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China, claims that the theory that the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan to be the least likely theory out of four possible theories — however, U.S. officials are casting doubt on the report.
The report claims that the most likely scenario was that humans contracted the coronavirus through an animal and that the lab leak theory was “extremely unlikely.” The report contends that the most likely theory is that a bat infected another animal which then infected a human.
“The team proposed further research in every area except the lab leak hypothesis,” The Associated Press reports. “The report’s release has been repeatedly delayed, raising questions about whether the Chinese side was trying to skew the conclusions to prevent blame for the pandemic falling on China.”
However, top former and current U.S. officials are raising doubts about the credibility of the report, and some believe that the lab leak is the most likely theory.
Jamie Metzl, former NSC official in the Clinton administration and member of a WHO advisory committee on genetic engineering, told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that the WHO’s trip to China was “not” an investigation and that China essentially conducted all the investigations. Metzl pointed out potential issues with the theory that the pandemic had a natural origin, saying that there would have likely been “some kind of evidence of an outbreak” between southern China, where bats that carry very similar strains of the novel coronavirus are located, and Wuhan, where the pandemic was first detected. Metzl suggested that the pandemic could have come from the lab in Wuhan.
Metzl joined more than two-dozen other signatories on a WHO letter earlier this month in demanding that the international community put in place a team to investigate the origins of the pandemic because the efforts so far “do not constitute a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation.”
Former CDC Director Robert Redfield, a virologist, said in a recent CNN interview that he believes that the pandemic started in a lab in Wuhan and that it escaped. “I do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human. And at that moment in time, the virus came to the human, became one of the most infectious viruses that we know in humanity for human to human transmission,” Redfield said. “Normally, when a pathogen goes from a zoonotic to human, it takes a while for it to figure out how to become more and more efficient.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a CNN interview that aired on Sunday that the Biden administration has “real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report, including the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it.” Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said last month that the Biden administration had “deep concerns about the way in which the early findings of the Covid-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them.”
David Asher, the State Department’s former lead investigator who oversaw the Task Force into the COVID-19 virus origin, told Fox News earlier this month that he not only believes that the coronavirus escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology, BSL-4 lab, but he believes that the Chinese military was conducting bioweapons research at the lab.
Fox News’s report noted that Asher has worked for Republican and Democrat administrations on “some of the most classified intelligence investigations for the State Department and Treasury.”
“Motive, cover-up, conspiracy, all the hallmarks of guilt are associated with this. And the fact that the initial cluster of victims surrounded the very institute that was doing the highly dangerous, if not dubious research is significant,” Asher said. Asher said that he believes that the Chinese stopped engaging in biodefense research around 2017 and started to research bioweapons.
Fox News reported:
The Chinese, according to Asher, stopped talking publicly about the research into coronavirus “disease vectors which could be used for weapons” in 2017, at the same time its military began funding the research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“I doubt that that’s a coincidence,” Asher said.
After his interview with Fox News, Asher told The Australian that the pandemic could have potentially started when the Chinese were developing a vaccine for the coronavirus and that it escaped at that time. The Australian reported:
He said US intelligence that has now been declassified, along with information from public sources, has credibly confirmed that three workers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell sick in early to mid-November 2019, prior to the official start of the pandemic.
Their illness was consistent with both COVID-19 and influenza and, in his personal assessment, was the likely cause of the outbreak.
“There were multiple staff members who did have to go to hospital and appeared to have had conditions of COVID-19,” he said. “You don’t normally go to the hospital with influenza, especially a cluster of people. This is the most probable source of the outbreak.”
When asked by The Australian whether the U.S. government was investigating if the coronavirus could have been a bioweapon, Asher responded, “Yes.”
“There is a high probability the Chinese government was engaged in a weaponization effort at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutes involving coronavirus research,” Asher said. “Whether offense or defense, which is almost impossible to tell, it was 100 per cent undeclared and that is a serious violation of the Biological Weapons Convention and the WHO International Health Regs — to the extent it spilled out and over somehow.”
China has a history of poor lab safety standards, lab leaks, and U.S. diplomatic cables from 2018 warned of serious safety issues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was studying bat coronaviruses. The left-leaning New York Magazine published a lengthy report that made a convincing case that the coronavirus pandemic originated from a lab leak.
“There’s evidence certain scientists have found … that there was adenovirus present in the sequences posted publicly,” Asher said. “Adenovirus means that there was a vaccine present for COVID-19; that could indicate that this was a bio-defense project putting a vaccine together. People don’t normally develop a vaccine for something they are working on. That doesn’t make any sense … to develop a vaccine in advance for something that would never see the light of day makes it sort of ridiculous but is totally consistent with a biological weapons program. They develop an antidote.”
Former Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger confirmed during a CBS News interview last month much of what Asher later said.
“If you weigh the circumstantial evidence, the ledger on the side of an explanation that says that this resulted from some kind of human error, it far outweighs the- the side of the scale that says this was some natural outbreak,” Pottinger said. “We have very strong reason to believe that the Chinese military was doing secret classified animal experiments in that same laboratory, going all the way back to at least 2017. We have good reason to believe that there was an outbreak of flu-like illness among researchers working in the Wuhan Institute of virology in the fall of 2019, but right- immediately before the first documented cases came to light.”
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Quote:GENEVA (AP) — A joint World Health Organization-China study on the origins of COVID-19 says that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely,” according to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press.
The findings offer little new insight into how the virus first emerged and leave many questions unanswered. But the report does provide more detail on the reasoning behind the researchers’ conclusions.
The team proposed further research in every area except the lab leak hypothesis — a speculative theory that was promoted by former U.S. President Donald Trump among others. It also said the role played by a seafood market where human cases were first identified was uncertain.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, said he would like to see the report’s raw information first before deciding about its credibility.
“I’d also would like to inquire as to the extent in which the people who were on that group had access directly to the data that they would need to make a determination,” he said. “I want to read the report first and then get a feel for what they really had access to -- or did not have access to.”
The report, which is expected to be made public Tuesday, is being closely watched since discovering the origins of the virus could help scientists prevent future pandemics — but it’s also extremely sensitive since China bristles at any suggestion that it is to blame for the current one.
Matthew Kavanagh of Georgetown University said the report deepened the understanding of the virus’s origins, but more information was needed.
“It is clear that that the Chinese government has not provided all the data needed and, until they do, firmer conclusions will be difficult,” he said in a statement.
Last year, an AP investigation found the Chinese government was strictly controlling all research into its origins. And repeated delays in the report’s release have raised questions about whether the Chinese side was trying to skew its conclusions.
“We’ve got real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report, including the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a recent CNN interview.
China rejected that criticism Monday.
“The U.S. has been speaking out on the report. By doing this, isn’t the U.S. trying to exert political pressure on the members of the WHO expert group?” asked Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian.
Still, suspicion of China has helped fuel the theory that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus was first identified. The report cited several reasons for all but dismissing that possibility.
Full Coverage: Coronavirus pandemic
It said that such laboratory accidents are rare, that the labs in Wuhan were well-managed and there is no record of viruses closely related to the coronavirus in any laboratory before December 2019.
The report is based largely on a visit by a WHO team of international experts to Wuhan. The mission was never meant to identify the exact natural source of the virus, an endeavor that typically takes years. For instance, more than 40 years of study has still failed to pinpoint the exact species of bat that are the natural reservoir of Ebola.
In the draft obtained by the AP, the researchers listed four scenarios in order of likelihood for the emergence of the new coronavirus. Topping the list was transmission from bats through another animal, which they said was likely to very likely. They evaluated direct spread from bats to humans as likely, and said that spread to humans from the packaging of “cold-chain” food products was possible but not likely.
That last possibility was previously dismissed by the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but researchers on this mission have taken it up again, further raising questions about the politicization of the study since China has long pushed the theory.
While it’s possible an infected animal contaminated packaging that was then brought to Wuhan and infected humans, the report said the probability is very low.
Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, said even that “very low probability” was an overstatement. “There’s no compelling evidence of people actually being infected through packaging,” he said, calling the theory “far-fetched.”
Woolhouse said it was possible the source of COVID-19 might never be identified.
“The emergence of a new (disease) is always a sequence of unlikely events,” he said. “It’s hard to be definitive and rule anything out.” But he said most scientists agree that bats are the most likely source.
Bats are known to carry coronaviruses and, in fact, the closest relative of the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in bats.
The report said highly similar viruses have been found in pangolins, a scaly anteater prized in traditional Chinese medicine, but scientists have yet to identify the same coronavirus in animals that has been infecting humans.
The AP received the draft copy on Monday from a Geneva-based diplomat from a WHO-member country. It wasn’t clear whether the report might still be changed prior to release, though the diplomat said it was the final version. A second diplomat confirmed getting the report too. Both refused to be identified because they were not authorized to release it ahead of publication.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged he had received the report over the weekend and said it would be formally presented Tuesday.
“All hypotheses are on the table and warrant complete and further studies,” he said at a news conference.
The report is inconclusive on whether the outbreak started at a Wuhan seafood market that had one of the earliest clusters of human cases in December 2019. Research published last year in the journal Lancet suggested the market may have merely served to further spread the disease rather than being its source.
The market was an early suspect because some stalls sold a range of unusual animals — and some wondered if they had brought the new virus to Wuhan. The report noted that animal products — including everything from bamboo rats to deer, often frozen — were sold at the market, as were live crocodiles.
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Quote:Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance – which collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology or coronavirus-related research – hosted Dr. Anthony Fauci for several speeches.
EcoHealth’s Twitter account contains a picture of Daszak – whose Chinese Communist Party research and financial ties have been extensively documented by the National Pulse – smiling next to what they call the “incomparable” Dr. Fauci in 2016.
The 2016 tweet also contains the hashtag “#EHAEvent,” which coincides with three other tweets from the same day referencing an event where Dr. Fauci spoke about the Zika virus. At the time, Dr. Fauci was the head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) – a title he still holds in addition to Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden.
“Thanks to everyone who joined us last night in D.C. for our Zika talk, and special thanks to Dr. Fauci for a terrific presentation. Dr. Fauci demonstrated perfectly why it’s so important to put more resources toward disease prevention efforts,” the group’s Facebook page captioned the same picture of Daszak and Dr. Fauci.
The March 30th event – ‘Zika virus: A Pandemic in Progress” – counted Daszak as the primary presenter and Dr. Fauci as a special guest, according to the invitation:
The EcoHealth Alliance website also reveals the organization hosted an event – “A special free screening!” – on November 15th, 2016 that featured Dr. Fauci as a speaker.
Another link dated to 2016 containing the following picture of Dr. Fauci has been scrubbed from the EcoHealth site, prompting users with a “403 – Forbidden” message”:
The unearthed relationship between Dr. Fauci, Daszak, and EcoHealth Alliance is sure to complicate the fact that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sent millions of taxpayer dollars to fund EcoHealth’s research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Despite criticisms prompting the NIH to withdraw federal funding from the group, the NIH reinstated a $7.5 million grant to the group in August 2020.
The type of research conducted by the group in tandem with the Wuhan Institute of Virology prompted concern among NIH officials for its role in COVID-related research, as outlined in a letter by NIH’s Deputy Director for Extramural Research Dr. Michael Lauer.
Dr. Lauer announced the suspension of NIH grants to the group, which saw its studies engineer the “highly specific doorway into the human body” as COVID-19, as a response:
“It is our understanding that one of the sub-recipients of the grant funds is the Wuhan Institute of Virology (‘WIV’). It is our understanding that WIV studies the interaction between corona viruses and bats. The scientific community believes that the coronavirus causing COVID-19 jumped from bats to humans likely in Wuhan where the COVID-19 pandemic began. There are now allegations that the current crisis was precipitated by the release from WIV of the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. Given these concerns, we are pursuing suspension of WIV from participation in Federal programs.”
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Quote:Jamie Metzl, a former NSC official in the Clinton administration and a member of a WHO advisory committee on genetic engineering, told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired on Sunday night that the WHO’s recent trip to China was “not” an investigation and that China essentially did all the investigating.
“I wouldn’t really call what’s happened now an investigation. It’s essentially a highly-chaperoned, highly-curated study tour,” Metzl said. “Everybody around the world is imagining this is some kind of full investigation. It’s not. This group of experts only saw what the Chinese government wanted them to see.”
“We would have to ask the question, ‘Well, why in Wuhan?’ To quote Humphrey Bogart, ‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, why Wuhan?’ What Wuhan does have is China’s level four virology institute, with probably the world’s largest collection of bat viruses, including bat coronaviruses,” Metzl continued.
“While they were there they didn’t demand access to the records and samples and key personnel,” Metzl said. “It was agreed first that China would have veto power over who even got to be on the mission. … On top of that, the WHO agreed that in most instances China would do the primary investigation. And then just share its findings with these international experts. So these international experts weren’t allowed to do their own primary investigation.”
Metzl noted that if the animal-to-human theory is correct, then there likely would have been outbreaks in southern China where the bats that are believed to be carriers of the novel coronavirus — or very similar coronaviruses — were found in caves previous years.
“There was a direct order from Beijing to destroy all viral samples and they didn’t volunteer to share the genetic sequences,” former Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger said. “There is a body of research that’s been taking place conducted by the Chinese military in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has not been acknowledged by the Chinese government. We’ve seen the data. I’ve personally seen the data.”
When asked why the Chinese military was in the lab, Pottinger said that officials are not sure but that it was “a major lead that needs to be pursued by the press, certainly by the World Health Organization.”
“Beijing is simply not interested in allowing us to find the answers to those very pertinent questions,” he said. “They were doing research specifically on coronaviruses that attach to the ACE2 receptors in human lungs just like the COVID-19 virus,” adding that that fact was “a pretty potent bullet point when you consider that the place where this pandemic emerged was a few kilometers away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
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