Covid-19 > Two New Studies Try to Whitewash Wuhan Lab's Guilt of Creation of Covid-19

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COVID-19's origins were at Wuhan market in China, two new studies suggest

By HealthDay News

   

Markets in Wuhan, China, sell fresh meat in the open air, often offering live animals for slaughter.

File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo

Two new studies strongly suggest that COVID-19 most likely began with a jump to humans from animals sold at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China.

It's not clear from what type of animal the virus jumped to a human, but the first animal-to-human transmission appears to have happened around Nov. 18, 2019, one study found.

According to the researchers, the Wuhan market contained a wide range of live wild animals, with badgers, birds, muskrats, snakes and other species sold for food.

Two strains of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, already were present at the market by the fall of 2019, the studies found.

I wonder how they determined that?

"While I'm hesitant to call it proof, what we presented is the most comprehensive explanation for the SARS-CoV-2 genomic diversity at the outset of the pandemic," study co-author Joel Wertheim, an associate adjunct professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, said in a university news release.

"There are really no other good explanations for both of these strains being at the market except for multiple jumps into humans."

The two studies first were posted online in February as preprints, but they've now undergone peer review and were published Tuesday in the journal Science.

Other theories about how the virus began in humans include the "Chinese lab leak" hypothesis widely circulated on the internet. The World Health Organization has recommended that scientists continue research on that and other theories.

But the researchers behind the two new studies believe their findings deliver convincing evidence on the virus' origins.

"It's a real thing," said Michael Worobey, a co-author of the first study and department head of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, told CNN. "It's just not plausible that this virus was introduced any other way than through the wildlife trade."

Seriously! Can this idea be anything other than a Deep State propaganda project? When you have a virology lab working on making the Coronavirus "gain-of-function" abilities which would make it easier to infect humans and animals, just down the street from where 2 new strains of Covid appeared, how can you possibly draw the conclusion that the two facts are not connected?

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Covid-19 > FBI Inquiry into Wuhan Lab as Possible Source of Covid -19

Coronavirus: Dossier Lays Out Case Against China Bat Virus Program; Designer Virus

Covid-19 > FBI Inquiry into Wuhan Lab as Possible Source of Covid -19

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Some things are so blatantly obvious, but with American money involved,

it is much more likely that the truth will be covered up rather than revealed.

An aerial view shows the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's

central Hubei Province on April 17, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

FBI Launched Inquiry Into NIH Funding of Wuhan Lab, Emails Show

By Eva Fu July 15, 2022 Updated: July 16, 2022 

INSIDE CHINA

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched an inquiry into the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding of bat research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, newly released emails show.

The interest from the top U.S. intelligence agency adds to the international scrutiny on the Wuhan facility, which houses one of China’s highest-level biosecurity labs that has been considered a possible source of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In preparation for our call on Tuesday, Erik [Stemmy] (cc’d) has provided responses to your initial questions below (also attached),” wrote Ashley Sanders, an investigation officer at the NIH’s division of program integriy, in an email (pdf) dated May 22, 2020 with the subject “Grant Questions – FBI Inquiry,” and directed to FBI agent David Miller.

The email was obtained by government transparency watchdog Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, which asked for records of communications, contracts, and agreements with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

The scope of the inquiry is unclear because the rest of the email correspondence, five pages in total, are entirely redacted. But the name of the email attachment “SF 424 AI110964-06 (received date 11/05/2018),” corresponds to the NIH grant “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”

The project in question is headed by Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, which then funnels money to the lab in Wuhan. From 2014 to 2019, the New York nonprofit received six yearly grants totaling $3,748,715 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under the NIH to fund the project, which was expected to end in 2026.

The FBI inquiry had focused on at least two of the grants, in 2014 and 2019 respectively, the email subject line suggests.

The 2014 grant aimed to “understand what factors increase the risk of the next CoV emerging in people by studying CoV diversity in a critical zoonotic reservoir (bats), at sites of high risk for emergence (wildlife markets) in an emerging disease hotspot (China),” according to the project description. Specifically, the researchers would assess the coronavirus spillover potential, develop predictive models of bat coronavirus emergence risk, and use virus infection experiments as well as “reverse genetics” to test the virus’s transmission between species.

WHO team member Peter Daszak leaves his hotel after the World Health Organization (WHO) team wrapped up its investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province on February 10, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

In the project summary for the 2019 grant, EcoHealth stated that they had found that “bats in southern China harbor an extraordinary diversity of SARSr-CoVs,” and some of those viruses can “infect humanized mouse models causing SARS-like illness, and evade available therapies or vaccines.”

Recently disclosed documents show that, under one grant, the WIV had conducted an experiment that resulted in a more potent version of a bat coronavirus.

In the project that took place under the fifth grant, from June 2018 to May 2019, the researchers infected two groups of laboratory mice, one of which with a modified version of a bat coronavirus already existing in nature, and another with the original virus.

Those infected with the modified version became sicker, Lawrence Tabak, a principal deputy director at the NIH, wrote in a letter in response to a Congressional inquiry. (not sure if we need to specify who it’s from)

“As sometimes occurs in science, this was an unexpected result of the research, as opposed to something that the researchers set out to do,” wrote Tabak. He acknowledged that EcoHealth had violated the grant terms by failing to notify the NIH “right away” about the finding.

Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the visit by the World Health Organization (WHO) team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on Feb. 3, 2021. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)

The experiment appears to fit the definition of gain-of-function research regardless of its intentions, according to some experts.

“The genetic manipulation of both MERS and the SARS conducted in Wuhan clearly constituted gain-of-function experiments,” Jonathan Latham, executive director of The Bioscience Research Project, previously told The Epoch Times. He said the NIH’s wording choice “unexpected” was “absurd,” “when clearly these experiments were expressly designed to detect increased pathogenicity.”

An April 2020 memo (pdf) reveals that the State Department assessed lab leak as the most likely origin of COVID-19.

“The Wuhan labs remained the most likely yet least probed. All other possible places of virus’ origin have been proven false,” the memo stated, citing circumstantial evidence such as safety standard lapses, experiments on bats by WIV researchers, and the lab’s role in a “deliberate coverup, especially destruction of any evidence of leaks and disappearance of its employees as Patient Zero.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to the FBI for comments.

More Clues About the Origins of Covid-19

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Fury is often the response when someone is caught out in a lie.

China furious as new report suggests Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care

weeks before Covid-19 outbreak was disclosed

24 May, 2021 08:51

Researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology became so ill in November 2019 that they required hospital treatment, the Wall Street Journal has reported as the international community continues to probe Covid-19's origins.

According to a US intelligence report cited by the paper, three staff members from the institute became so ill that they required hospital care weeks before Beijing acknowledged the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

One source told the Wall Street Journal that the intelligence was provided by a foreign ally and could be significant but required further verification. Another person familiar with the matter described the information as coming from various sources, adding that the intelligence was of “exquisite quality” and “very precise.” However, the individual acknowledged that the intelligence did not reveal why the researchers fell ill. Notably, a State Department document issued during the final days of Donald Trump’s administration said several researchers from the institute became sick in the fall of 2019 with symptoms associated with Covid-19, as well as more common seasonal illnesses. 

According to the Journal, President Joe Biden’s administration hasn’t disputed the claim that Wuhan researchers fell ill weeks before the Covid-19 outbreak was made public. But one administration official told the paper that Trump’s government had “put spin on the ball” by interpreting the intelligence as clear evidence that the virus came from the laboratory. Several other current US officials said the information was “circumstantial” but worthy of further investigation. 

China’s Foreign Ministry issued a response to the report on Monday, insisting that there were no reported Covid-19 cases among staff and students at the virology institute. 

The previously undisclosed report comes amid growing debate over how the pandemic began.

Beijing has strenuously denied that the laboratory played any role in the international health crisis. In March, a team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) published a report after visiting Wuhan which effectively ruled out the possibility that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident. The team did not identify the origin of the virus, but said that the introduction of the disease through an intermediate host followed by zoonotic transmission – from animals to humans – was “likely to very likely." The report also said it was possible that the virus was introduced to residents in Wuhan through the food supply. 

The Chinese city reported the first cases of the illness on December 31, 2019, and shut down a market that authorities initially believed was linked to the disease’s spread. 

Following the release of the WHO’s findings, 14 nations, including the US and UK, issued a joint statement expressing concerns that the investigation was not thorough enough. The states called for “transparent” further analysis of the outbreak that is “free from interference” and “unimpeded.”

In fact, the investigation was a farce and its conclusions were not based on any evidence whatsoever.

How scientists at Wuhan lab helped Chinese army in secret project to find animal viruses

Covid19 Origins - Another CDC Director Suggests Wuhan Virus Leak a Possibility

Coronavirus: Dossier Lays Out Case Against China Bat Virus Program; Designer Virus

During the early months of the pandemic, Washington accused China of not doing enough to contain the virus and even suggested the disease may have leaked from the Wuhan lab. The Trump administration never provided evidence for the claim, however. 

China’s Foreign Ministry noted the WHO’s conclusion that a lab leak was highly unlikely and accused Washington of continuing to “hype the lab leak theory.” 

"Is [Washington] actually concerned about tracing the source or trying to divert attention?” it said in a statement to the Journal. 

The WHO is scheduled to outline the next phase of its investigation into Covid-19’s origins, with the new report potentially fueling speculation that the lab-leak theory requires further consideration.