Tag: WUHANLABCONTROVERSY

Categories
-Top News COVID-19 USA

US lab study found Wuhan lab leak theory plausible

Wuhan lab china

The study was conducted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California during the Trump administration….reports Asian Lite News

The US government’s national laboratory had in a 2020 report on the origins of Covid-19 concluded that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday citing people familiar with the classified document.

The study prepared in May 2020 by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California said that “the hypothesis claiming the virus leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan is plausible and deserves further investigation”, WSJ reported.

The study, dated May 27 was also used by the State Department in its own inquiry into the pandemic’s origins in October last year, during the Trump administration.

Wuhan Institute of Virology

Lawrence Livermore’s “Z Division” drew its assessment based on genomic analysis of the SARS-COV-2 virus, which causes Covid19, the WSJ report said, adding that the national laboratory has declined to comment on the study.

The virus was initially thought to have first transmitted to humans via an infected animal, but the study differed from the dominant view.

ALSO READ: Pompeo says Wuhan lab was into military research

The findings of the US State Department’s probe into the pandemic’s origins were made public in a January 15 fact sheet. It listed a series of circumstantial reasons why the Covid-19 outbreak might have originated as a result of a lab accident.

They include the assertion that “the US government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology) became sick in autumn 2019” with symptoms that were consistent with Covid-19 or a seasonal flu, the report said.

The assertion is partly based on a US intelligence report that three WIV researchers became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.

The Lawrence Livermore’s study is attracting fresh interest after US President Joe Biden, last month, ordered the intelligent community to re-double efforts to examine how the virus originated, including the lab accident theory. He has asked the agencies to report to him within 90 days on how the virus emerged.

China has, on the other hand, dismissed the Wuhan lab leak theory as “extremely impossible” and has accused the US of “political manipulation”.

Blinken slams China

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken slammed China again for the lack of transparency on the origins of the coronavirus, as global pressure mounts for a fresh probe in Wuhan.

“What we’ve seen, more than unfortunately, from the PRC (People’s Republic of China) since the beginning of this crisis is a failure to meet its basic responsibilities in terms of sharing information and providing access,” Blinken told the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, reported Voice of America (VOA).

In his opening remarks to the Committee, the Secretary of State said that China and others are working hard to “bend international organizations to their worldview” and stressed that organisations should remain grounded in the values, principles, and rules of road and rules of the world.

“We got to revitalize our alliances and partnerships, out-compete China, and defend the international rules-based order against those who would seek to undermine it, renew democratic values at home and abroad, and push back against malign activity by our adversaries,” he said.

Earlier, a top World Health Organization official on Monday said that the WHO cannot compel China to divulge more data on the origins of COVID-19.

Mike Ryan, Director of the agency’s emergencies programme, said at a news conference that the “WHO doesn’t have the power to compel anyone in this regard”, reported Al Jazeera.

‘Massive cover-up’

China is continuing with a “massive cover-up” on Covid-19 even as the theory that the coronavirus had leaked from Wuhan lab gains credibility, Fox News has reported citing advisory board member to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Jamie Metzl, the WHO official told Fox News that the Chinese deception involves “destroying samples, hiding records, placing a universal gag order on Chinese scientists and imprisoning Chinese citizen journalists asking the most basic questions,”

It further reported that China is reportedly planning to build dozens of biosafety level three labs and one biosafety level four lab over the next five years, as investigators take another look at the possibility that the coronavirus could have leaked out of a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

“The more that China stonewalls, the more suspicious that it looks,” Metzl said. “We can’t give China a veto over whether or not we investigate the world’s worst pandemic in a century and then do everything we can to make everybody safe.”

The WHO advisor stressed the importance of doing everything possible to have a “full investigation” into the pandemic, including the US working with allies to have a “parallel” process if China does not cooperate.

ALSO READ: ‘Wuhan lab head, US expert flagged coronavirus risk in 2015’

Categories
-Top News China USA

Did China’s ‘Bat Woman’ get US money in ‘gain-of-function’ research?

At a US Senate hearing on May 11, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) said that scientists in the US have long known how to mutate animal viruses to infect humans…report Asian Lite News

Amid the leaked Anthony S Fauci emails and independent investigations into the Wuhan lab secrets, reports have emerged again that the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China was funded by the US government and the virology lab, headed by Shi Zhengli, received nearly $600,000 in ‘gain-of-function’ research.

At a US Senate hearing on May 11, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) said that scientists in the US have long known how to mutate animal viruses to infect humans.

“For years, Dr Ralph Baric, a virologist in the US, has been collaborating with Dr Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virology Institute, sharing his discoveries about how to create super viruses. This gain-of-function research has been funded by the NIH. Dr Fauci, do you still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan?,” he told the hearing.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, replied: “Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not never and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

However, according to documents obtained by Daily Mail last year, the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology in China undertook coronavirus experiments on bats and other wild animals which were funded by a $3.4 million grant from the US government.



Zhengli, also known as the �Bat Women,’ is back in limelight as the conversation around the �gain-of-function’ research have once again started to dominate the headlines.

In 2014, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the NIH arm that Fauci heads, awarded a $3.4 million grant to the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, which aims to protect people from viruses that jump from species to species.

The group hired the virology lab in Wuhan to conduct genetic analyses of bat coronaviruses collected in Yunnan province, about 800 miles southwest of Wuhan, Tampa Bay Times reported last month.

ALSO READ: Maritime Militia leads Chinese expansion in South China sea

“The research was considered crucial in part because coronaviruses had previously emerged in China and begun to spread among humans. EcoHealth Alliance paid the lab $598,500 over five years. The lab had secured approval from both the U.S. State Department and the NIH,” the report mentioned.

All parties involved in the grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology have denied that it involved gain-of-function research.

In Wuhan, China, where the first cases of the coronavirus emerged in late 2019, at least two labs studied coronaviruses that originate in bats � the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (WHCDC).

“Both are close to the seafood market that was originally deemed the source of the outbreak. The WIV is about eight miles (nearly 13 km) away. The WHCDC is right around the corner,” according to a report in the Washington Post.

Wuhan Institute of Virology

The WIV is where Zhengli works. The WIV has a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory, the most secure, where researchers wear protective suits.

“But some of WIV’s more controversial experiments on bat coronaviruses are believed to have been done at BSL-2 labs, where researchers wear white lab coats and gloves, as in a dental office,” the report mentioned.

Many experts have until recently denied the lab-leak theory and claimed that Covid-19 originated as a natural infection leaping from animals to humans. But now, there has been a shift.

A team of 18 scientists from Universities in the US, Canada, the UK and Switzerland have signed a letter in the journal Science arguing the need to determine the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Various other studies have hinted at Covid-19 as a result of the Wuhan lab-leak.

“There is some smoke here,” said the Washignton Post report.

ALSO READ: China’s plans to expand N-arsenal for possible ‘showdown’ with US

Categories
-Top News China USA

China probe will determine Democratic Party fate

Biden (Twitter@POTUS)

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.

ALSO READ: WHO likely to restudy Wuhan lab origin theory of Covid-1

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.

ALSO READ: China targets Fauci amid Wuhan lab controversy