“I do think there’s a problem with zoonotic diseases and this is clearly something we need to focus on,” said UK PM …reports Asian Lite news
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that it doesn’t look like that Covid-19 originated from a lab in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
“At the moment the advice we’ve had is that it doesn’t look like this particular disease of a zoonotic origin came from a lab,” Johnson said in his closing press conference at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Britain’s southwestern resort of Carbis Bay, a seaside resort and village in Cornwall.
“I do think there’s a problem with zoonotic diseases and this is clearly something we need to focus on,” he said.
Wuhan lab china
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain’s “best information” remained that Covid-19 “jumped” from animals to humans, Xinhua reported.
Leaders from Britain, the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy, plus the European Union, wrapped up on Sunday their first in-person summit in almost two years.
Britain also invited Australia, India, South Korea and South Africa as guest countries to this year’s meeting.
Pompeo went on to say that the administration was “serious in this endeavour” and that it “made clear that there would be real cost” to the Chinese government….reports Asian Lite News
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated his firm belief that the coronavirus pandemic originated with a leak out a laboratory in China’s Wuhan.
In an interview with Fox News, Pompeo said under the administration of former President Donald Trump, the US came close to uncovering the details on COVID-19 origins and said there was enormous evidence.
“We have a really good idea what happened here. There is an enormous amount of evidence that there was a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There is a pile of evidence a hundred feet high, I have high confidence that that’s the case. We pressed the Chinese Communist Party really hard – not just the State Department, but our CDC and others too,” he said.
Pompeo went on to say that the administration was “serious in this endeavour” and that it “made clear that there would be real cost” to the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, an advisory board member to the World Health Organization (WHO) told Fox News last week that China’s “massive cover-up” on COVID-19 is still happening today as the Wuhan lab-leak origin theory gains momentum.
“The Chinese have engaged in a massive cover-up that is going on until this day, involving destroying samples, hiding records, placing a universal gag order on Chinese scientists and imprisoning Chinese citizen journalists asking the most basic questions,” said Jamie Metzl of the WHO.
Meanwhile, Pompeo’s successor Antony Blinken said that the WHO’s first phase of study on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic is “highly deficient”, adding that leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) countries will insist China to cooperate with a second phase of WHO study. (ANI)
Yang said China was “gravely concerned” over what he called “absurd” stories that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab….reports Asian Lite News
Top US and Chinese diplomats appear to have had another sharply worded exchange, with Beijing saying it told the US to cease interfering in its internal affairs and accusing Washington of politicising the search for the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Senior Chinese foreign policy advisor Yang Jiechi and Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a phone call on Friday that revealed wide divisions in a number of contentious areas, including the curtailing of freedoms in Hong Kong and the mass detention of Muslims in the northwestern Xinjiang region.
Calls for a more thorough investigation into the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 are particularly sensitive for China because of suggestions that it might have have escaped from a laboratory in the central city of Wuhan, where cases were first discovered.
Yang said China was “gravely concerned” over what he called “absurd” stories that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab.
China “firmly opposes any despicable acts that use the epidemic as an excuse to slander China and to shift blames,” Yang was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.
“Some people in the United States have fabricated and peddled absurd stories claiming Wuhan lab leak, which China is gravely concerned about,” Yang said.
“China urges the United States to respect facts and science, refrain from politicising Covid-19 origin tracing and concentrate on international anti-pandemic cooperation.” The State Department said Blinken “stressed the importance of cooperation and transparency regarding the origin of the virus, including the need for (World Health Organization) Phase 2 expert-led studies in China.”
The US and others have accused China of failing to provide the raw data and access to sites that would allow a more thorough investigation into where the virus sprung from and how it initially spread.
Equally contentious were the issues of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan and accusations that China has arbitrarily detained two Canadian citizens in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of an executive of Chinese communications technology giant Huawei, who is wanted by the U.S. law enforcement.
The U.S. has “fabricated various lies about Xinjiang in an attempt to sabotage the stability and unity in Xinjiang, which confuse right and wrong and are extremely absurd. China is firmly opposed to such actions,” Yang said.
Wuhan Institute of Virology
“Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs,” and those found in violation of a sweeping national security law imposed on the former British colony “must be punished,” Yang said.
Blinken, on the other hand, underscored the U.S. concern over the deterioration of democratic norms in Hong Kong and the ongoing “genocide and crimes against humanity against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang,” the State Department said.
He also urged Beijing to ease pressure against Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy China claims as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary.
According to Xinhua, Yang said Taiwan involves China’s “core interests” and that Beijing “firmly defends its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The tone of the phone call seemed to echo contentious talks in March in Alaska, when the sides traded sharp and unusually public barbs over vastly different views of each other and the world in their first face-to-face meeting since President Joe Biden took office.
At that meeting, the US accused the Chinese delegation of “grandstanding,” while Beijing fired back, saying there was a “strong smell of gunpowder and drama” that was entirely the fault of the Americans.
It is a matter of astonishment that Biden believes that the WHO will conduct a credible investigation into the origins of SARS2, writes Prof. Madhav Nalapat
President Donald Trump and his successor Joe Biden ensured that billions of dollars flowed to US corporations. The stated intention was to keep job losses caused by SARS2 to as low a level as possible. While those at the upper end of the income scale have had their wealth enhanced during 2020, others less well-off have seen drops, often sharp, in their incomes during 2020. Many “safe” investments were rendered useless as a consequence of the global impact that was the consequence of the flights that took off from Wuhan to destinations across the world between November 2019 and the close of January 2020. This was when Xi Jinping implemented a total lockdown of the city and surrounding areas.
An example of losses made is the scheme for “ownership of holiday stays” by a hotel chain with franchises across India, and which is headquartered in the US. An acquaintance has lost $23,000 by investing in the scheme in October 2019. The person decided to opt out altogether when a “maintenance plus” bill of an additional $4,000 was suddenly slapped in the middle of the SARS2 second wave. This was to cover “maintenance plus” expenses (on zero stays) until May 2021. It is uncertain when the devastation caused by Covid-19 will end in much of the world.
Chief medical advisor Dr Anthony Fauci, former coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force Dr Deborah Birx at a news conference in April 2020
Given that travel during much of 2020 (and in many parts of the world, thus far in 2021 as well) was not possible, charging a hefty “annual maintenance fee” for 2020 seems to have been somewhat insensitive. However, what matters is the fine print, and the fine print did not mention Covid-19 at all, not surprising as it was presented for signature in October 2019. What was included in the fine print was that legal disputes would need to be adjudicated exclusively in the US. This stipulation rendered courts elsewhere irrelevant for the citizens of countries in which they operate. Who looks at the fine print anyway? Most only listen to the salesperson as one after another claim of wondrous rewards gets mentioned. From that to handing over a cheque for $23,000 was seen as but a small step for a lifetime of attractive benefits and rewards.
There are others who paid much more in the same scheme, in the expectation of travel volume estimated in the pre-pandemic era. Rather than keep paying substantial amounts of money annually on “maintenance” in a world where travel seems unlikely to recover for years, many opt out of the scheme of the US-based hotel chain. They are promptly informed that little if anything of their original investment will be returned to them. What was presented as an attractive, indeed irresistible, contract in the plush New York offices of the hotel chain will be foreclosed. The hotel chain taking the entire amount paid by a customer for the scheme in question is acting no differently from other reputed brands in seeking to gouge as much as possible from a diminished stock of customers.
People line up to enter a mass COVID-19 vaccination site at the United Center in Chicago. (Photo by Joel Lerner_Xinhua)
An individual who joins with countless others in seeing investments turn into dust in the storm of the pandemic is likely to accept meekly the entire loss of the capital invested, a loss caused by the circumstances created by a pandemic, in the emergence of which he or she had no role. Justice, after all, is blind, although not in the manner displayed by the hotel chain. Not reading the fine print of an agreement before signing it is something that most of those who are being besieged online with social media platforms telling them to agree to conditions loaded with one-sided fine print also do.
Tens of millions have experienced monetary losses similar to the individual who for no fault except gullibility saw $23,000 melt away into the coffers of the US-based hotel chain during the pandemic. Hundreds of millions have lost their jobs, while those who have suffered a loss of income may number in the billions. Which is why the virus that the WHO failed to alert the world in time has become such a radioactive issue in the politics of so many countries, including India and the US. The pandemic felled Trump in the 2020 presidential polls, and may neuter the Democratic Party in 2022 should President Biden follow the course suggested by Trump administration holdovers, who have inexplicably been retained by him.
Wuhan Institute of Virology
It is a matter of astonishment that Biden believes that the WHO will conduct a credible investigation into the origins of SARS2. Or that Health Guru Anthony Fauci will ever admit that the funds poured by Peter Daszak in the direction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology may have in any way have caused SARS2. Or that most of the results of the experiments may have gone to the PLA rather than to US authorities. Since the final weeks of 2019, US health experts who were frequent visitors to the Wuhan institute and the WHO team stationed nearby seem to have ignored warning signs that appeared from November 2019 onwards that something had gone badly wrong. That the absence of warnings from either US experts or the WHO until what was a localised eruption of the disease grew into the scale of a pandemic is obvious.
That both the initial as well as the latest conclusions of WHO seem to be based on trust rather than scientific analysis is the conclusion being drawn by those virologists and epidemiologists around the world who are unconnected to SARS2 Gain of Function research, and who have the courage to risk the wrath of the influential individuals who have sought to label as “conspiracy theories” any hypothesis other than the direct movement of the virus from animal to human, without any laboratory equipment coming in between. President Biden needs to ensure that facts come out, not as they are now in droplets contributed by a growing number of individuals of conscience, but through an impartial commission that excludes any individual directly or indirectly linked to the SARS2 experiments at Wuhan. Thus far, his actions have failed to meet this test. Should this continue for longer, should the notion of a cover-up of the origins of SARS2 take hold in the public imagination, the Democratic Party will suffer a devastating defeat in the 2022 midterms that will transform Biden into the lamest Lame Duck President in the US for over a century.
Contrarily, should he ensure that such an enquiry not get derailed by those in the administration with an interest in a narrative that takes the spotlight off their own actions, it may be difficult for the DINOs—Democrats in Name Only—to defeat his transformational proposals on infrastructure in the US Senate. The handful of Republican Senators who are opposed to their party becoming the Voice of Trump may ensure that Biden gets what is a Biden revival plan that is immensely popular with voters of all hues.
The European Union, Australia and Japan also joined the US in seeking a deeper probe into the origins of the pandemic…reports Atul Aneja
The clamour for an in-depth investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic was first reported in Chinese city of Wuhan has become stronger after several reports have surfaced, indicating that the virus may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
“We underscore the importance of a robust comprehensive and expert-led inquiry into the origins of Covid-19,” US representative Jeremy Konyndyk told the World Health Assembly (WHA), which began its session on May 24.
The European Union, Australia and Japan also joined the US in seeking a deeper probe into the origins of the pandemic.
The US appears to have taken the lead to fully investigate the origins of the virus. Apart from China it has also criticised the World Health Organisation (WHO) for not doing enough to determine the ground-zero of the outbreak.
“We need a completely transparent process from China,” White House coronavirus adviser Andy Slavitt Slavitt said at a coronavirus task force briefing on May 25. He added that full assistance from the WHO is needed and “we don’t have that now.” The WHO and China need to do more to provide definitive answers for the global community, he observed.
Among other authoritative voices, Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease official, said “many of us” feel like Covid-19 was a natural occurrence, but “we don’t know 100 per cent” and it is imperative to investigate. The ongoing discussions about the outbreak gained renewed attention this week as US intelligence agencies examine reports that researchers at a Chinese virology laboratory in Wuhan were seriously ill in 2019 a month before the first cases of Covid-19 were reported.
A still-classified US intelligence report circulated during former President Donald Trump’s administration alleged that three Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers became so ill in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.
The WSJ writeup builds on earlier credible reports that strongly suggest that a lab leak could have been the likely cause of the Covid-19 outbreak.
In a detailed article, the authoritative Bulletin of Atomic Scientist (BAS) had cited five reasons to build a case for a fresh investigation on the possibility that the virus had escaped from WIV.
Wuhan lab china
The BAS report points out that WIV has been engaged in what are called gain-of-function experiments. In simple language, it means that the facility had been conducting experiments to enhance the ability of dangerous animal viruses to infect people. Was SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic also a result of gain-of-function experiments? In that case, its accidental leakage cannot be ruled out.
Nicholas Wade, the author of the article further identifies Shi Zheng-li as a nodal researcher at WIV, who was engaged in gain-of-function experiments. The author points out that Shi had earlier collaborated with coronavirus researcher Ralph S. Baric. In November 2015 the duo created a novel virus by taking the backbone of the SARS1 virus and replacing its spike protein with one from a bat virus. The development of SARS-CoV-2 could therefore have been a logical extension of her earlier work.
Second, the safety standards of WIV were simply not fool-proof to prevent an accidental leakage of a lab developed Coronavirus. Wade spotlights that gain-of-function experiments were being carried out in the less safe BSL-2 level labs.
Third, Chinese lack of transparency during the conduct of investigations to determine the origin of the pandemic at Wuhan has further strengthened the lab escape proposition.
Fourth, the Chinese authorities went out of their way to sell the theory that the SARS-CoV-2virus evolved naturally. Why did they have to mount such an extraordinary effort?
Finally, the Chinese attempted to manipulate the composition of the WHO investigators, who visited them in February, and controlled the team’s information access, generating further speculation of foul play.
On the back of these fast-developing chorus of full proof investigation into the origin of the coronavirus, a leading scientist on the WHO’s Covid-19 mission to China has demanded a follow-up trip to gather additional research on the origins of the disease with a rider that it should be separate from any audit of information provided by Beijing.
The comments from Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans came on May 25 after the United States called for international experts to be allowed to evaluate the source of the coronavirus and the early days of the outbreak, in a second phase of the WHO’s investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.
The scientist was part of the WHO-led team which spent four weeks in China earlier this year and in March published a report jointly with Chinese scientists that said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal and the report concluded that “introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway”.
Koopmans said the team would be eager to carry out additional research in China in a number of areas and was awaiting the outcome of WHO discussions. She stressed the need for a clear mandate to conduct research, not to carry out an audit.
The US intelligence community has not ruled out either theory. The reporting about possible November infections among the Wuhan Institute employees “can’t be dismissed”, they believe.(This content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com)
