Article by National Natural Science Foundation of China, tracing
Covid-19 virus to Wuhen biolab, removed
Newsletter published on February 25, 2020
(1) Article by National Natural Science Foundation of China, tracing
Covid-19 virus to Wuhen biolab, removed
(2) The removed article 'The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus'
(3) Chinese scientists ship virulent viruses from Canada's Winnipeg lab
to China
(4) Holly Avila: nothing accidental
(5) Israel Shamir: 'China-basher'
(6) Economist: Prepare for worldwide Covid-19 epidemic
(1) Article by National Natural Science Foundation of China, tracing
Covid-19 virus to Wuhen biolab, removed
From: chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com>
Logistical and Technical Exploration into the Origins of the Wuhan
Strain of Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Posted on January 31, 2020 by harvard2thebighouse
Logistical and Technical Exploration into the Origins of the Wuhan
Strain of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Posted on January 31, 2020 by
harvard2thebighouse
An excellent YouTube summary of many but not all of the points in the
report below by a Professor of Neurobiology at UPitt is available here.
UPDATE 2/14, 3:02am EST: A probable smoking pre-print has been released,
by the National Natural Science Foundation of China:
"In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV
coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and
intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a
laboratory in Wuhan."
In a predictable turn, that article has been removed and both
researchers have since deleted their profiles off of the ResearchGate
site completely. But curiously, the trend in reporting from the Chinese
government diverged sharply on February 11th, when the paper was
initially uploaded onto the site – making it appear as if there may be
infighting within the Party about what their official story will be as
the cover-up unfolds. And back on January 2nd, the Wuhan Institute of
Virology’s director sent out a memo forbidding discussion of an "unknown
pneumonia in Wuhan," making it abundantly clear that the Chinese
government knew about this outbreak long before they took any steps to
contain it, or made any public announcement.
These propaganda efforts have been bolstered by possible collusion from
American scientists, some of which is detailed below – but also most
notably by one Peter Daszak, who had been publishing papers on
coronaviruses alongside the primary Chinese person-of-interest, Zhengli
Shi, for years. Perhaps most notably, Daszak is listed as a co-author in
the paper first documenting the isolation of a coronavirus from a bat
that targets the ACE2 receptor – just like COVID-19 – which was done in
Wuhan’s virology lab supervised by Zhengli Shi, and led by a second
suspect Chinese researcher who you’ll meet below. At best, Daszak is
perhaps acting as an unwitting agent of the Chinese government, but
regardless holds an enormous conflict-of-interest. And if nothing else,
it is wildly irresponsible to speak-out against the possibility that the
virus got out of a lab when a natural origin has not been conclusively
demonstrated. Daszak’s statement in The Lancet is either incompetence,
or is meant to be a smokescreen for the wanton hubris and greed that
have fueled the gain-of-function research detailed below: As one
possibility, coronaviruses have been seen as a viable vector for an HIV
vaccine for years – a project with hundreds of millions of dollars
dangling over it.
Such a vaccine is just one possible gain-of-function pursuit that would
fit much of the genomic picture below, whether or not it was the exact
target of the Wuhan lab’s genomic tinkering – the reality is millions of
dollars of funding from multiple world governments have poured into this
research, funding that’s dangled over these scientists as they’ve chased
it like Icarus, this time not just risking their own lives – but
hundreds of millions of others as well.
This report is the product of a collaboration between a retired
professional scientist with dozens of peer-reviewed publications and 30
years of experience in genomic sequencing and analysis who helped design
several ubiquitous bioinformatic software tools, and a former NSA
counterterrorism analyst. It considers whether the Wuhan Strain of
coronavirus (COVID-19) is the result of naturally emergent mutations
against the possibility that it may be a bio-engineered strain –
directly altered by genetic manipulation, subject to artificially-guided
evolutionary selection, or both – meant for immunotherapy protocols that
was released into the public, most likely by accident since China’s rate
of occupational accidents is about ten-times higher than America’s, and
some twenty-times more than Europe’s – the only other regions with
high-level virology labs. Additionally, researchers from this Wuhan lab
were reported to have particularly sloppy field research methods, being
both bled and peed on by local bats that host coronaviruses remarkably
similar to the Wuhan Strain COVID-19. And they’ve also been reported to
smuggle used research animals out of their labs, selling them for cash
on the street. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in mid February the Chinese
Ministry of Science sent out a directive to all its labs emphasizing the
important of carefully handling bio-infectious agents and alluding to
slack oversight and past lapses.
Mistakes may have been precipitated by the need to quickly finish
research that was being rushed for John Hopkins’ Event 201 which was
held this past October and meant to gameplan the containment of a global
pandemic. Research may also have been hurried due to deadlines before
the impending Chinese New Year – the timing of these events point to
increased human error, not a globalist conspiracy. Beijing has had four
known accidental leaks of the SARS virus in recent years, so there is
absolutely no reason to assume that this strain of coronavirus from
Wuhan didn’t accidentally leak out as well. This is unlikely to be a
plot twist in one of the novels Tom Clancy wrote after he started
mailing it in.
Simply and horribly, this is likely to become another Chernobyl or
Fukushima – a catastrophic illustration of mankind’s hubris and
intransigence clashing with Nature, as fate again reaps a once
unimaginably tragic toll.
Given that this outbreak was said to begin in late December when most
bat species in the region are hibernating and the Chinese horseshoe
bat’s habitat covers an enormous swath of the region containing scores
of cities and hundreds of millions people to begin with, the fact that
this Wuhan Strain of coronavirus, denoted as COVID-19 emerged in close
proximity to the only BSL-4 virology lab in China, now notoriously
located in Wuhan, which in turn was staffed with at least two Chinese
scientists – Zhengli Shi and Xing-Yi Ge – both virologists who had
previously worked at an American lab which already bio-engineered an
incredibly virulent strain of bat coronavirus – the accidental release
of a bio-engineered virus meant for defensive immunotherapy research
from Wuhan’s virology lab cannot be automatically discounted, especially
when the Wuhan Strain’s unnatural genomic signals are considered.
– In 2002, Stony Brook first assembled a virus from scratch, building a
polio-virus, and providing proof-of-concept for the creation,
alteration, and manipulation of viral genomes. A generation earlier,
artificially enhancing selection by intentionally infecting countless
series of lab animals with different viruses created the H1N1 Swine Flu.
Its Franken-genome has a mysterious untraceable genetic parentage and a
"clear unnatural origin," and H1N1 became the poster-child for a
moratorium against gain-of-function research – experimentation that
seeks to increase a pathogen’s virulence, creating a more effective
double-edged sword to counter and learn from. In the case of H1N1, it
wasn’t a question of if it’d escaped from a research laboratory, only
whether it’d been designed as part of a weapons system, or been part of
a vaccine trial.
– By 2015, conducting research that was met with an enormous amount of
concern, scientists at UNC had successfully created a "chimeric,
SARS-like virus" by altering the viral genome of a Chinese bat
coronavirus’s spike-protein genes – sequences that code for the spikes
that poke out from surface of viruses and allow them to unlock entry
into hosts, in this case making the bio-engineered coronavirus
incredibly contagious. This research raised eyebrows since it was
clearly gain-of-function research, a practice banned in America from
2014 until December 2017 when NIH lifted the ban, specifically to allow
research on this sort of virus. Looking at UNC’s gain-of-function
research on coronavirus spike-proteins, which received its funding just
before the ban was implemented and was only allowed to go forward
following a special review, a virologist with the Louis Pasteur
Institute of Paris warned: "If the [new] virus escaped, nobody could
predict the trajectory."
– But then oddly, in late January right as the pandemic was blooming,
Dr. Ralph Baric claimed in an interview that people should be more
concerned with the seasonal flu – despite having personally overseen the
controversial engineering of a hyper-virulent strain of batty
coronavirus just a few years back. Immediately discounting the
burgeoning outbreak of an unknown coronavirus as a non-event seems
particularly troubling for someone who’d trained two Chinese scientists
on how to make hyper-virulent coronaviruses, especially when it’s hard
to imagine that Dr. Baric was unaware his past colleagues were now
working at the Wuhan Virology Lab, the epicenter of the outbreak.
Highlighting the dissembling absurdity of this statement, based on
reporting from the Chinese CDC: the Wuhan Strain COVID-19 appears to be
twenty-times more lethal than the seasonal flu.
– Scientists have expressed concern about China’s ability to safely
monitor this BSL-4 lab in Wuhan since it opened in 2017: "an open
culture is important to keeping BSL-4 labs safe, and he questions how
easy this will be in China, where society emphasizes hierarchy.
‘Diversity of viewpoint, flat structures where everyone feels free to
speak up and openness of information are important.'" This lab is at
most 20 miles from the wet market where the virus had been assumed to
have jumped from animal to human. However the idea that a Chinese lab
could have a viral sample escape is well-documented – as mentioned, one
lab in Beijing has had four separate incidents of the SARS virus leaking
out accidentally.
– Notably, the first three known cases from early December had no
contact with that market, and roughly one-third of the initial exposed
cohort had no direct ties to Wusan’s wild meat wet-market, the original
presumptive source of the virus. And in mid February, reporting
indicated that COVID-19’s patient zero in fact had no connection at all
with the wet-market. This is reinforced by the fact Chinese research has
also concluded that COVID-19 "may have begun human-to-human transmission
in late November from a place other than the Huanan seafood market in
Wuhan."
– Since its discovery, scientists have been unable to fully determine
the zoological origins of COVID-19, it was initially thought to have
passed through snakes, but now all that’s agreed upon is that it’s
mostly bat in origin. This inability to derive an exact zoological
source is exactly what would be expected if the virus had been
artificially engineered to target humans as UNC already has, this
doesn’t prove an artificial nature – but it is consistent with one.
Although there has been speculation that pangolins may have been the
missing vector, the only data about the pangolin virome wasn’t entered
into NCBI’s system until late January, and couldn’t possibly have been
collected any earlier than late September 2019, and doesn’t fully answer
the vector question anyways.
– As explained in Nature, COVID-19’s Franken-genome combines a
cornucopia of distinct genetic markers from each of the three other
distinct branches of the coronavirus family tree, but is distinct enough
from all of them that it in fact forms its own clade. Along those same
lines, a full-genome evolutionary analysis of COVID-19 published in The
Lancet concluded, "recombination is probably not the reason for
emergence of this virus" since it seems that the Wuhan Strain isn’t a
mosaic of previously known coronaviruses, but instead draws from
distant, discrete parts of the coronavirus family tree – not how these
viruses naturally evolve. Because even mixing and matching coronavirus
genomes from every known mammal, scientists couldn’t find any possible
combination that would explain those regions of the Wuhan Strain’s
genome. The Lancet muses that a mysterious animal host could still be
out there, however since they’ve already searched through every known
possibility and been unable to find a match, another obvious explanation
is that bio-engineering accounts for the inexplicable regions of the
Wuhan Strain’s genome
– Early research found that COVID-19 targets the ACE2 receptor, which
may be found in East Asians more frequently than other global
populations, indicating that the Wuhan Strain COVID-19 was likely
developed as part of a gain-of-function defensive project possibly
linked to immunotherapy or vaccinations – never meant to leave the lab,
but meant to serve as a Red Team to fight back against, not as an
offensive weapon since the virus is likely wired to be more virulent
among Asian populations. Further support for this is the fact that the
Wuhan BSL-4 virology lab was already actively looking into the risks
posed from bat coronaviruses, and actively researching coronavirus
treatments – by definition both of these projects would require live
virulent strains of coronavirus. And disturbingly, COVID-19 appears to
have 10 to 20 times more affinity for the ACE2 receptor than SARS,
according to a pre-print out of the University of Texas.
– Researchers have pointed out that the most critical sections of the
COVID-19’s protein-spike genome don’t match the previously reported
pattern that would be expected for optimal binding to the ACE2 receptors
found in humans and ferrets, which indicates that these particular
segments wouldn’t have been directly genetically engineered to increase
virulence. However this is exactly what researchers looking for a "safe"
vaccine candidate would engineer, and doesn’t rule out a scenario where
the virus was passed through a series of experimental hosts. The
research team in fact notes that its spike "appears to be the result of
selection on human or human-like ACE2 permitting another optimal binding
solution to arise," failing to mention that the only other human-like
receptors are found in ferrets – which have frequently been used in
vaccine trials for viruses with this sort of protein-spike. And so the
Wuhan Strain’s unique affinity for the human ACE2 receptor may be a
horrible accident, engineered but not intentionally.
– The Wuhan Strain of coronavirus, COVID-19, appears to be transmissible
even before its host shows any symptoms at all, making
temperature-scanning at airports ineffective since hosts appear to be
contagious for about a week before any symptoms emerge. This is in stark
contrast with SARS, whose hosts weren’t contagious until they were
symptomatic, allowing for its relatively quick containment. This chart
is not from a peer-reviewed source but was claims to capture the
comparative rates of infections between recent outbreaks. A recent
pre-print now gives COVID-19 a rating of R4, meaning each host passes
the virus on to four new victims, a rate significantly higher than any
past global viral outbreak.
– The successful end results of the aforementioned bat coronavirus
bio-engineering research at UNC that was critiqued for being too risky
in 2015, was published the following year and described the successful
bio-engineering of a highly-virulent coronavirus derived from bats which
was achieved by tinkering with its spike-protein genes. In this paper,
researcher #8 is listed as one "Zheng-li Shi" who’s listed as being
attached to the "Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety,
Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China."
– Zhengli Shi seems to have returned to Wuhan at some point since 2016,
specifically to the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Disease Engineering
Technical Research Center, since she then appears in this September
2019 paper on the human behaviors most likely to lead to bat-borne
coronavirus exposure in southern China, and also in the paper claiming
that this coronavirus was bat in origin, which was peculiarly submitted
in coordination with the announcement of the outbreak. Very, very
peculiarly. She also appears in this pending preprint on the current
outbreak of COVID-19, just a small sample of the dozens of
coronavirus-related papers she’s published over a three decade career.
– Not only does Zhengli Shi provide a direct chain of expertise tying
the already successful bio-engineering of a virulent bat-based
coronavirus at UNC directly to the BSL-4 virology lab in Wuhan, but back
in January 2014 she’d received a $665,000 grant from NIH for a study
titled The Ecology of Bat Coronaviruses and the Risk of Future
Coronavirus Emergence (NIAID R01 AI1 10964) as well as $559,500 more
from USAID for a study titled Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT_2China
(Project No. AID-OAA-A-14-00102). Beyond this American funding
specifically into viral diseases zoonotically transferring from animals
to humans which would slipped in just before the ban, over the years
she’s also received around $3 million in grants to study these zoonotic
viruses from China and other countries, and has served on the editorial
board of several virological research magazines. More of her research
into the intersection of coronaviruses like the Wuhan Strain and their
epidemic potential was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, the
U.S. Threat Reduction Agency, and U.S. Biological Defense Research
Directorate of the Naval Medical Research Center.
– And so a scientist who’s been prolifically involved with studying the
molecular interaction of coronaviruses and humanity, spending decades
and millions of dollars, and having even helped build a hyper-virulent
coronavirus from scratch at UNC – just so happens to be working at the
only BSL-4 virology lab in China that also just so happens to be at the
epicenter of an outbreak involved a coronavirus that’s escaping
zoological classification, and has other unnatural characteristics that
will be discussed below.
– Another Chinese virologist, Xing-Yi Ge, appears as an author on the
2016 UNC paper and is also attached to the lab in Wuhan. Previously in
2013, he’d successfully isolated a SARS-like coronavirus from bats which
targets the ACE2 receptor, just like our present virus, the Wuhan
Coronavirus COVID-19 uses. And it turns out that sections of the Wuhan
Strain’s ACE2 receptor’s genes are unique: they’re almost identical to
SARS’s spike-protein genes – despite the fact that almost none of the
two coronavirus’s genomes are similar anywhere else at all. Beyond that,
although the Wuhan Strain’s spike-protein genome differs from SARS in
four out of the five most important genomic spots that determine binding
to the ACE2 receptor, they surprisingly don’t effect the protein-spike’s
shape. And in an even bigger coincidence, these four spots also code for
the outside region of the spike that allows entry into cells, and do not
effect it either – allowing the Wuhan Strain to still use the ACE2
receptor to unlock cells while possibly gaining additional capabilities.
The odds that this concordance was bio-engineered into the virus are
several orders of magnitude more likely than for this to randomly have
evolved in nature.
– Numerous videos purportedly from inside hospitals in Wuhan depict a
crisis that is far greater than the numbers released by China to date.
There is widespread but unverified online reporting that Wuhan
crematoriums have been running 24/7, which is consistent with a recent
peer-reviewed study that claims that as of January 25, Wuhan had over
75,000 infections – when the official number was just 761. Chinese
language social media also reflects a sense of panic and desperation
that is highly discordant with the numbers being released by the Chinese
government. Who, notably, are refusing any direct assistance from the
American CDC. (Evidence that China is vastly downplaying this pandemic’s
severity: Example 1. Example 2. Example 3. Example 4. Example 5. Example 6.)
– Some of the dystopian carnage creeping across China may be due to the
fact that much of China’s population may have already been exposed to
coronavirus infection via SARS or other less notorious strains, which
would allow the Wuhan Stain COVID-19 to use antibody-dependent
enhancement to much more efficiently enter into cells, and then become
much more virulent since this enhancement hijacks the body’s preexisting
immune response to coronavirus infections and allows easier entry.
However whether or not people have been exposed to a coronavirus
infection before, once it’s been circulating in a population for long
enough the Wuhan Strain may be able to reinfect its own past hosts and
use this molecular hijacking on antibodies left from its own previous
infection to become far more virulent, regardless of whether or not
someone has been exposed to other coronaviruses before COVID-19. And
early reporting from Chinese doctors indicates that re-infections of the
Wuhan Strain are far more lethal than the first.
– Additionally, although another since-retracted pre-print noted several
very short genomic sequences in COVID-19’s spike-protein gene that look
far more similar to sequences found in HIV than to other coronaviruses –
critics quickly pointed out that the shared homology didn’t reach
statistical significance. However a closer look at the data reveals that
there were a few small shared genomic segments that, despite being
physically separated from each other along each strand of DNA, all
worked together to code for the Wuhan Strain’s protein-spike’s crucial
receptor binding site. Something that is highly unlikely to have
happened by chance. And despite most of its protein-spike being shared
with SARS, these substituted segments weren’t shared at all – nor were
they found in any other coronavirus. One possible reason for these
HIV-like segments is that they were meant to be epitopes, or molecular
flags meant to mark intruders for a vaccine to target. It is
mathematically possible for this to happen in nature – but only in a
ten-thousand bats chained to ten-thousand Petri dishes and given until
infinity sense. Alternatively, it could also be produced by infecting a
room full of ferrets with a bespoke coronavirus vaccine and sifting
through the wreckage for your genomic needle.
– Critics have brushed off the Wuhan Strain’s shared homology with HIV
as statistically insignificant, however clinical reporting indicates
that the Wuhan Strain may be using this shared HIV homology to attack
CD4 immune cells just like HIV does, as an unusually high percentage of
patients are showing low white blood cell counts, especially the sickest
ones. This pathogenicity may well be due to the unique HIV-live genomics
of the Wuhan Strain, as one white-paper by LSU’s professor emeritus of
Microbiology, Immunology, and Parasitology who’s also a Harvard-educated
virologist with a PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics notes:
"This is the first description of a possible immunosuppressive domain in
coronaviruses or COVID-19. The three key [mutations] common to the known
immunosuppressive domains are also in common with the sequence from [the
spike-protein]. While coronaviruses are not known for general
immunosuppression of the style shown by HIV-1, this does not rule out
immunosuppression at the site of active infection in the lung, which
would prolong and potentially worsen infection at that site." Even more
troubling, a peer-reviewed study noted that one particular part of the
Wuhan Strain’s spike-protein genome also wasn’t found in any of its
relatives, "and may provide a gain-of-function to [COVID-19] for
efficient spreading in the human population." And according to that
paper, this particular type of cleavage site makes similar viruses both
more pathogenic and more neurotoxic.
– And it should be noted that SARS – much ballyhooed as a close relative
to the Wuhan Strain – didn’t notable effect white blood cell counts.
Additionally, clinical treatment guides published online in late January
by established Chinese medical sources note the progressive reduction of
white blood cells, as well as the importance of monitoring this decline.
And reporting from Thailand indicates that adding a cocktail of two
different anti-HIV drugs to the typical flu treatment regime seemed to
effectively knock back the Wuhan Strain. Additionally, one of the only
autopsies performed outside of China to date found that the deceased had
a severely depleted white blood cell count. These lowered counts may
come from this shared similarity with HIV, or it could also be the
result of antibody-dependent enhancement as well, since this phenomenon
primarily targets white blood cells for its hijackings.
– In a highly concerning turn, scientists have noted that the Wuhan
Strain can have a "striking" short term rate of mutation which doesn’t
indicate an artificial origin but captures the unique threat posed by
this coronavirus regardless of its providence, since a faster mutation
rates makes it more likely this virus can dodge testing and neutralize
vaccines. Something there is already early evidence for. Further
concerning are reports out of China that even patients who appear cured
still harbor COVID-19 in their system, and although the full
implications of this are not yet known – none of them are good.
– Giving further credence to the idea that the Wuhan Strain was
bio-engineered is the existence of a patent application that looks to
modulate a coronavirus’ spike-protein genes – the precise region altered
by Zhengli Shi at UNC to make a hyper-virulent strain of coronavirus,
and whose alteration and adaptation would explain the Wuhan Strain’s
unusual behavior as discussed above.
– And curiously, the head of Harvard’s Chemistry Department, Dr. Charles
Lieber, was arrested in the midst of this outbreak on charges that he’d
been accepting millions of dollars in bribes from the Chinese
government. According to his charging documents, Dr. Lieber first went
to the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT), in November 2011 to
participate in a nanotechnology forum, which was when he was recruited
into a bribery scheme that would net him several million dollars to
"establish a research lab and conduct research at WUT," which became
known as " Joint Nano Key Laboratory," as well as mentor and advocate
for graduate students. By 2015, Dr. Lieber appeared to be fairly
intimately involved with what seemed to begin as simply a nanotechnology
lab, but now had shifted to involve biology as well, since he described
visiting the lab multiple times per year "as we try to build up the
nano-bio part of the lab." Whether or not this nano-bio part of the Nano
Key Laboratory is related to Wuhan’s BSL-4 virology lab isn’t clear,
however if the Wuhan Strain was bio-engineered, technology classified as
"nano-bio" would’ve almost certainly played a role.
Given the above facts, either:
– A coronavirus spontaneously mutated and jumped to humans at a wet
market or deep in some random bat cave which just so happened to be 20
miles from China’s only BSL-4 virology lab, a virus with an unusually
slippery never-before-seen genome that’s evading zoological
classification, that may be as much as twenty-times more contagious than
SARS and whose spike-protein region which allows it to enter host cells
holds an unique HIV-like signature with the concomitant clinical
response, that somehow managed to infect its patient zero who had no
connection to this market, and then be so fined-tuned to humans that
it’s gone on to create the single greatest public health crisis in
Chinese history with approaching 100 million citizens locked-down or
quarantined – also causing Mongolia to close its border with its largest
trading partner for the first time in modern history and Russia to ban
Chinese citizens from entry into their country.
– Or, Chinese scientists failed to follow correct sanitation protocols
possibly while in a rush leading up to an international virological
conference and during their boisterous holiday season, something that
had been anticipated since the opening of the BSL-4 lab and has happened
at least four times previously, and accidentally released this
bio-engineered Wuhan Strain – likely created by scientists researching
immunotherapy regimes against bat coronaviruses, who’ve already
demonstrated the ability to perform every step necessary to bio-engineer
the Wuhan Strain COVID-19 – into their population, and now the world. As
would be expected, this virus appears to have been bio-engineered at the
spike-protein genes which was already done at UNC to make an
extraordinarily virulent coronavirus. Chinese efforts to prevent the
full story about what’s going on from getting out are because they want
the scales to be even since they’re now facing a severe pandemic and
depopulation event. No facts point against this conclusion.
Speaking volumes about the corporatized nature of our media, the only
entities to acknowledge my research and journalism have been Zero Hedge,
which received a permanent ban from Twitter for opening the door to this
obvious possibility, and Jennifer Zeng of the Epoch Times. Something
tells me Tencent or other companies controlled by the CCP have
significant capital invested in Buzzfeed, which drew censure to Zero
Hedge’s reporting, as well as many other media outlets which have
stifled discussion of the outbreak such as Reddit. These companies have
been willing to endanger millions of lives for a few dollars. And since
clicks come way before integrity, multiple media outlets and journalists
have entirely ignored me after I’ve provided proof that I’ve broken
details of this story, appropriating my work for their own.
Read more from the former NSA counterterorrism analyst here, and learn
why social inequalities are the most likely source of sustained violence
in America.
Find out about why a lot of what you think you know about evolutionary
biology is wrong.
Medium user @siradrianbond provided all information regarding Dr.
Zheng-li’s extensive grant funding.
(2) The removed article 'The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus'
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The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus
Botao Xiao12 and Lei Xiao3
1 Joint International Research Laboratory of Synthetic Biology and
Medicine, School of Biology and Biological Engineering, South China
University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China
2 School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
Wuhan 430074, China
3 Tian You Hospital, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan
430064, China
The 2019-nCoV coronavirus has caused an epidemic of 28,060
laboratory-confirmed infections in human including 564 deaths in China
by February 6, 2020. Two descriptions of the virus published on Nature
this week indicated that the genome sequences from patients were 96% or
89% identical to the Bat CoV ZC45 coronavirus originally found in
Rhinolophus affinis 12. It was critical to study where the pathogen came
from and how it passed onto human.
An article published on The Lancet reported that 41 people in Wuhan were
found to have the acute respiratory syndrome and 27 of them had contact
with Huanan Seafood Market3. The 2019-nCoV was found in 33 out of 585
samples collected in the market after the outbreak. The market was
suspicious to be the origin of the epidemic, and was shut down according
to the rule of quarantine the source during an epidemic.
The bats carrying CoV ZC45 were originally found in Yunnan or Zhejiang
province, both of which were more than 900 kilometers away from the
seafood market. Bats were normally found to live in caves and trees. But
the seafood market is in a densely-populated district of Wuhan, a
metropolitan of ~15 million people. The probability was very low for the
bats to fly to the market. According to municipal reports and the
testimonies of 31 residents and 28 visitors, the bat was never a food
source in the city, and no bat was traded in the market. There was
possible natural recombination or intermediate host of the coronavirus,
yet little proof has been reported. Was there any other possible
pathway? We screened the area around the seafood market and identified
two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus. Within ~280
meters from the market, there was the Wuhan Center for Disease Control &
Prevention (WHCDC) (Figure 1, from Baidu and Google maps). WHCDC hosted
animals in laboratories for research purpose, one of which was
specialized in pathogens collection and identification
6. In one of their studies, 155 bats including Rhinolophus affinis were
captured in Hubei province, and other 450 bats were captured in Zhejiang
province 4 The expert in collection was noted in the Author
Contributions (JHT). Moreover, he was broadcasted for collecting viruses
on nation-wide newspapers and websites in 2017 and 2019 7 8. He
described that he was once by attacked by bats and the blood of a bat
shot on his skin. He knew the extreme danger of the infection so he
quarantined himself for 14 days 7. In another accident, he quarantined
himself again because bats peed on him. He was once thrilled for
capturing a bat carrying a live tick8.
Surgery was performed on the caged animals and the tissue samples were
collected for DNA and RNA extraction and sequencing 4'5. The tissue
samples and contaminated trashes were source of pathogens. They were
only ~280 meters from the seafood market. The WHCDC was also adjacent to
the Union Hospital (Figure 1, bottom) where the first group of doctors
were infected during this epidemic. It is plausible that the virus
leaked around and some of them contaminated the initial patients in this
epidemic, though solid proofs are needed in future study.
The second laboratory was ~12 kilometers from the seafood market and
belonged to Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
^9’10. This laboratory reported that the Chinese horseshoe bats were
natural reservoirs for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
(SARS-CoV) which caused the 2002-3 pandemic9.
The principle investigator participated in a project which generated a
chimeric virus using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, and reported
the potential for human emergence 10. A direct speculation was that
SARS-CoV or its derivative might leak from the laboratory.
In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV
coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and
intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a
laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk
biohazardous laboratories. Regulations may be taken to relocate these
laboratories far away from city center and other densely populated places.
Contributors
BX designed the comment and performed literature search. All authors
performed data acquisition and analysis, collected documents, draw the
figure, and wrote the papers.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (11772133, 11372116).
Declaration of interests
All authors declare no competing interests.
References
1. Zhou P, Yang X-L, Wang X-G, et al. A pneumonia outbreak associated
with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin. Nature 2020.
2. Wu F, Zhao S, Yu B, et al. A new coronavirus associated with human
respiratory disease in China. Nature 2020.
3. Huang C, Wang Y, Li X, et al. Clinical features of patients infected
with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. The Lancet 2019.
4. Guo WP, Lin XD, Wang W, et al. Phylogeny and origins of hantaviruses
harbored by bats, insectivores, and rodents. PLoS pathogens 2013; 9(2):
el 003159.
5. Lu M, Tian JH, Yu B, Guo WP, Holmes EC, Zhang YZ. Extensive diversity
of rickettsiales bacteria in ticks from Wuhan, China. Ticks and
tick-borne diseases 2017; 8(4): 574-80.
6. Shi M, Lin XD, Chen X, et al. The evolutionary history of vertebrate
RNA viruses. Nature 2018; 556(7700): 197-202.
7. Tao P. Expert in Wuhan collected ten thousands animals: capture bats
in mountain at night. Changjiang Times 2017.
8. Li QX, Zhanyao. Playing with elephant dung, fishing for sea bottom
mud: the work that will change China's future, thepaper 2019.
9. Ge XY, Li JL, Yang XL, et al. Isolation and characterization of a bat
SARS-like coronavirus that uses the ACE2 receptor. Nature 2013;
503(7477): 535-8.
10. Menachery VD, Yount BL, Jr., Debbink K, et al. A SARS-like cluster
of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence.
Nature medicine 2015; 21(12): 1508-13.
(3) Chinese scientists ship virulent viruses from Canada's Winnipeg lab
to China
Coronavirus Bioweapon – How China Stole Coronavirus From Canada And
Weaponized It
GreatGameIndia - January 26, 2020 | Last modified on February 22nd, 2020
at 8:54 pm,
Last year a mysterious shipment was caught smuggling Coronavirus from
Canada. It was traced to Chinese agents working at a Canadian lab.
Subsequent investigation by GreatGameIndia linked the agents to Chinese
Biological Warfare Program from where the virus is suspected to have
leaked causing the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak. (This report on
Coronavirus Bioweapon has caused a major international controversy and
is suppressed actively by a section of mainstream media.) [...]
Coronavirus arrived at Canada’s NML Winnipeg facility on May 4, 2013
from the Dutch lab. The Canadian lab grew up stocks of the virus and
used it to assess diagnostic tests being used in Canada. Winnipeg
scientists worked to see which animal species can be infected with the
new virus. [...]
This Winnipeg based Canadian lab was targeted by Chinese agents in what
could be termed as Biological Espionage.
Chinese Biological Espionage
In March 2019, in mysterious event a shipment of exceptionally virulent
viruses from Canada’s NML ended up in China. The event caused a major
scandal with Bio-warfare experts questioning why Canada was sending
lethal viruses to China. Scientists from NML said the highly lethal
viruses were a potential bio-weapon.
Following investigation, the incident was traced to Chinese agents
working at NML. Four months later in July 2019, a group of Chinese
virologists were forcibly dispatched from the Canadian National
Microbiology Laboratory (NML). The NML is Canada’s only level-4 facility
and one of only a few in North America equipped to handle the world’s
deadliest diseases, including Ebola, SARS, Coronavirus, etc.
Xiangguo Qiu – The Chinese Bio-Warfare Agent
The NML scientist who was escorted out of the Canadian lab along with
her husband, another biologist, and members of her research team is
believed to be a Chinese Bio-Warfare agent Xiangguo Qiu. Qiu was the
head of the Vaccine Development and Antiviral Therapies Section in the
Special Pathogens Program at Canada’s NML.
Xiangguo Qiu is an outstanding Chinese scientist born in Tianjin. She
primarily received her medical doctor degree from Hebei Medical
University in China in 1985 and came to Canada for graduate studies in
1996. Later on, she was affiliated with the Institute of Cell Biology
and the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health of the University of
Manitoba, Winnipeg, not engaged with studying pathogens.
But a shift took place, somehow. Since 2006, she has been studying
powerful viruses in Canada’s NML. The viruses shipped from the NML to
China were studied by her in 2014, for instance (together with the
viruses Machupo, Junin, Rift Valley Fever, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic
Fever and Hendra).
Infiltrating the Canadian Lab
Dr. Xiangguo Qiu is married to another Chinese scientist – Dr. Keding
Cheng, also affiliated with the NML, specifically the "Science and
Technology Core". Dr. Cheng is primarily a bacteriologist who shifted to
virology. The couple is responsible for infiltrating Canada’s NML with
many Chinese agents as students from a range of Chinese scientific
facilities directly tied to China’s Biological Warfare Program, namely:
Sources say Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng were escorted from
the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg on July 5, 2019. Since then,
the University of Manitoba has ended their appointments, reassigned her
graduate students, and cautioned staff, students and faculty about
traveling to China. (Governor General’s Innovation Awards)
All of the above four mentioned Chinese Biological Warfare facilities
collaborated with Dr. Xiangguo Qiu within the context of Ebola virus,
the Institute of Military Veterinary joined a study on the Rift Valley
fever virus too, while the Institute of Microbiology joined a study on
Marburg virus. Noticeably, the drug used in the latter study –
Favipiravir – has been earlier tested successfully by the Chinese
Academy of Military Medical Sciences, with the designation JK-05
(originally a Japanese patent registered in China already in 2006),
against Ebola and additional viruses.
However, the studies by Dr. Qiu are considerably more advanced and
apparently vital for the Chinese biological weapons development in case
Coronavirus, Ebola, Nipah, Marburg or Rift Valley fever viruses are
included therein.
The Canadian investigation is ongoing and questions remain whether
previous shipments to China of other viruses or other essential
preparations, took place from 2006 to 2018, one way or another.
Dr. Xiangguo Qiu also collaborated in 2018 with three scientists from
the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Maryland,
studying post-exposure immunotherapy for two Ebola viruses and Marburg
virus in monkeys; a study supported by the US Defense Threat Reduction
Agency.
The Wuhan Coronavirus
Dr. Xiangguo Qiu made at least five trips over the school year 2017-18
to the above mentioned Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences, which was certified for BSL4 in January
2017. Moreover, in August 2017, the National Health Commission of China
approved research activities involving Ebola, Nipah, and Crimean-Congo
hemorrhagic fever viruses at the Wuhan facility.
Coincidentally, the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory is located only
20 miles away from the Huanan Seafood Market which is the epicenter of
the Coronavirus outbreak dubbed the Wuhan Coronavirus.
The Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory is housed at the Chinese
military facility Wuhan Institute of Virology linked to China’s
Biological Warfare Program. It was the first ever lab in the country
designed to meet biosafety-level-4 (BSL-4) standards – the highest
biohazard level, meaning that it would be qualified to handle the most
dangerous pathogens.
In January 2018, the lab was operational ‘for global experiments on
BSL-4 pathogens,’ wrote Guizhen Wu in the journal Biosafety and Health.
‘After a laboratory leak incident of SARS in 2004, the former Ministry
of Health of China initiated the construction of preservation
laboratories for high-level pathogens such as SARS, coronavirus, and
pandemic influenza virus,’ wrote Guizhen Wu.
Coronavirus Bioweapon
The Wuhan institute has studied coronaviruses in the past, including the
strain that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, H5N1
influenza virus, Japanese encephalitis, and dengue. Researchers at the
institute also studied the germ that causes anthrax – a biological agent
once developed in Russia.
"Coronaviruses (particularly SARS) have been studied in the institute
and are probably held therein," said Dany Shoham, a former Israeli
military intelligence officer who has studied Chinese biowarfare. He
said. "SARS is included within the Chinese BW program, at large, and is
dealt with in several pertinent facilities."
James Giordano, a neurology professor at Georgetown University and
senior fellow in Biowarfare at the U.S. Special Operations Command, said
China’s growing investment in bio-science, looser ethics around
gene-editing and other cutting-edge technology and integration between
government and academia raise the spectre of such pathogens being
weaponized.
That could mean an offensive agent, or a modified germ let loose by
proxies, for which only China has the treatment or vaccine. "This is not
warfare, per se," he said. "But what it’s doing is leveraging the
capability to act as global saviour, which then creates various levels
of macro and micro economic and bio-power dependencies."
China’s Biological Warfare Program
In a 2015 academic paper, Shoham – of Bar-Ilan’s Begin-Sadat Center for
Strategic Studies – asserts that more than 40 Chinese facilities are
involved in bio-weapon production.
(4) Holly Avila: nothing accidental
From: hollyavila@aol.com
I think the hit on China, Iran, and Italy shows who had the motive. I
don't think there was anything accidental about this bio weapon.
(5) Israel Shamir: 'China-basher'
From: israel shamir <israel.shamir@gmail.com>
Peter,
"Another such writer is Israel Shamir; he denies the Ukraine Famine AND
the Tiananmen massacre."
I also deny Uygur Gulag, 9/11 Official Version and Witchcraft.
You appear a China-basher. Is there any insinuation against China that
you do not subscribe to?
Regards,
Shamir
(6) Economist: Prepare for worldwide Covid-19 epidemic
Experts predict that covid-19 will spread more widely
2020-02-213
Feb 22nd 2020
GOMA AND KAMPALA
"THERE ARE so many crises in Congo." Gervais Folefack, who co-ordinates
the emergency programmes run by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in
the Democratic Republic of Congo, has mastered the art of the
understatement. The country has been shattered by war and corruption.
"All the time we are responding to crises," says Dr Folefack. He lists
the most recent: Ebola, measles, cholera. To them, he may well have to
add covid-19, a respiratory disease that originated in China. Those who
would need to respond to a surge in covid-19 cases are already busy with
the Ebola outbreak that began in 2018. "We are trying to prepare,"
continues Dr Folefack, but there is simply not enough time.
So far 99% of confirmed cases of the new coronavirus have been in China.
Of the 1,000-odd cases outside mainland China, more than half have been
on the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship docked in Japan; the rest are
scattered among 27 countries, mostly in Asia. Covid-19 has spread
rapidly in China despite the government locking down entire cities for
weeks. China’s efforts, along with the travel restrictions that many
countries have imposed on its citizens, have slowed the virus’s
progress. But many experts fear that it will inevitably become a
pandemic. Health authorities are frantically trying to prepare.
On February 12th Nancy Messonnier of America’s Centres for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) said America should be prepared for the
virus "to gain a foothold" in the country. Doctors in South Africa are
on high alert, says Cheryl Cohen of the National Institute for
Communicable Diseases. More than 850 medics in all nine of the country’s
provinces have been taught to spot the disease. The WHO is sending
surgical masks, gowns and gloves to hospitals in more than 50 countries.
It is teaching health workers across Africa how to use them to prevent
covid-19 infections—and how to treat those who have the disease.
Growing numbers of countries are screening passengers at airports and
borders for signs of covid-19. But when a virus starts travelling around
the world, says Michael Ryan of the WHO, its real point of entry is a
busy emergency room or a doctor’s surgery. In the 2003 outbreak of SARS
(severe acute respiratory syndrome), another coronavirus which spread to
more than 20 countries, about 30% of the 8,000 people infected were
health-care workers. Many, if not most, of the SARS outbreaks around the
world—from Toronto to Singapore— started in a hospital with a single
patient who had been infected abroad.
In countries where covid-19 cases are still rare doctors are, for now,
trying to identify suspected patients by asking those with a cough and
fever about recent travel to countries with outbreaks of the disease and
then testing them. In America if patients test negative for seasonal
flu, laboratories are starting to test for covid-19 (the country has so
far identified 29 cases).
Confirming a suspected infection in a laboratory can take days. Some
small European countries have just one or two laboratories able to
process covid-19 tests. Europe’s entire supply of test kits is shipped
from the two main laboratories of the European Centre for Disease
Prevention and Control (ECDC), the EU’s public-health agency. America’s
supply all comes from the CDC in Atlanta. It will be several months
before commercial tests are available.
Tests could soon run short if other countries experience covid-19
epidemics like China’s. Delays in getting the results would increase. A
lab technician must first prepare the samples. After that, processing
each test through a molecular-analysis machine can take an hour and a
half. These machines also run tests for the seasonal flu and other
diseases. A covid-19 epidemic in the middle of winter—peak season for
the common flu—would quickly overwhelm laboratories in most countries.
Rapid diagnostic tests for the new virus that are as quick to carry out
in doctors’ offices as pregnancy tests were at the top of the wishlist
at a WHO meeting about research priorities for covid-19 in February.
Once an epidemic is in full swing, extensive testing to find everyone
who might have the disease is less useful, says John Hick, an emergency
co-ordinator at the Hennepin County Medical Centre in Minneapolis. At
that point, he says, doctors will start to diagnose probable cases by
symptoms alone—which is common practice for many illnesses, including
the flu. Medics in parts of China are already doing this.
As with other contagious diseases, covid-19 patients in hospitals must
be isolated to prevent its spread. When patients become too numerous to
contain in isolation rooms, shared rooms, wings or entire floors may be
set aside for covid-19 patients only. The Vrije University hospital in
Amsterdam has dusted off its plans for doing this, including where to
put "do not cross" lines to separate such sections, says Rosa van
Mansfeld, who oversees infection prevention there. When all Dutch
hospitals are overwhelmed, the lights will be turned on at the country’s
"calamity hospital", a fully equipped facility in Utrecht that is
otherwise shut (it last opened to care for the victims of a terrorist
shooting in 2019). In Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, an empty Ebola
treatment centre will be used when covid-19 cases are identified.
Dr Hick says the biggest challenge if the disease starts to circulate
widely in Minneapolis will be staffing. With no vaccine to protect them,
many doctors and nurses will be infected. Others will need to stay at
home to look after their children because schools may be closed. In its
disaster planning, the hospital where Dr Hick works considered offering
child care on-site for its staff. But he admits that people may be
reluctant to bring their offspring to a hospital during an epidemic.
Hospitals will encourage people who do not seem to be seriously ill to
stay away, as they do during the peak of seasonal flu. In part, that is
to prevent them from straining the capacity of hospitals that are
already overwhelmed. Doctors have no treatment to offer those with mild
symptoms but in a hospital they can infect other patients or medics.
Such people will be advised to isolate themselves at home. Others with
mild symptoms may in fact have a different bug—but if they flock to
hospitals, they may contract covid-19 for real.
Hospitals in both rich and poor countries are worried that in the event
of an epidemic they will quickly run out of masks, gowns and gloves.
Guidelines by the ECDC say that 24 disposable sets per day may be needed
for a covid-19 patient in an intensive-care unit. The WHO says that a
global shortage is already occurring, with a 20-fold rise in prices for
some types of equipment. Surging demand in Asia, stockpiling by
hospitals and disrupted production in China have all contributed to
shortages of surgical masks.
Some hospitals are trying to conserve supplies. Dr van Mansfeld says
that nurses in her hospital in Amsterdam are being reminded not to use
the high-protection respirator masks if they are caring for patients for
whom the guidelines say ordinary surgical masks suffice. At some point,
says Dr Hick, medics may have to start reusing respirator masks
judiciously. Instead of throwing them away after each patient, they
could remove them, handling them particularly carefully so that any
germs on the outer surfaces are not transferred to their mouths or
noses, and re-use them.
The swine-flu pandemic, which was caused by the H1N1 virus and infected
16% of the world’s population in 2009, brought home the message that
doctors would have to make such tough decisions when big epidemics
strike, says Dan Hanfling of In-Q-Tel, an American organisation that
invests in national-security technology. Between the first and the
second wave of H1N1 infections in America, the country’s National
Academies of Sciences developed a set of "crisis standards of care".
These specify what doctors should do as shortages of medical supplies
become worse.
One course of action is to substitute treatments with near-equivalents,
such as drugs that have a similar effect. Another is to adapt what is
available for different uses. For example, simpler breathing machines
from ambulances may be used as substitutes for the sophisticated
machines in intensive-care units. Medics may have to clean and re-use
equipment, such as catheters, rather than throw it away after each use
(as doctors in poor countries do every day, Dr Hanfling points out).
The hardest decisions would come when all these options are exhausted.
Few countries have discussed how doctors would choose which patients get
ventilators when there are not enough for everyone who needs one. If
doctors have one patient who is on a ventilator but clearly getting
worse, and another who is healthier and more likely to survive, they can
justify reallocating the ventilator to the second patient. But such
decisions would be particularly hard to make with covid-19, based on
what doctors already know about the disease. A patient may be on a
ventilator for several weeks and show little improvement but still make
a good recovery.
Be prepared
America is ahead of most countries in planning for such things, says Dr
Hanfling. Disasters such as Hurricane Katrina—when many patients died in
hospitals that were unprepared for disaster—laid bare the need to
prepare for the worst. Each year the federal government gives states and
hospitals about $1bn specifically for disaster preparedness. That is
more than the national health budget of many African countries. Other
countries’ recent experience may help them. Kerala, the only state in
India to have confirmed cases of covid-19, swiftly contained an outbreak
of Nipah, a nasty virus, in 2018 and has since bolstered its health
system. Uganda has held back the spread of Ebola from next-door Congo
and in the process built up stocks of protective clothing for
health-care workers.
But poor countries would be hit particularly hard by outbreaks of
covid-19. Uganda is used to dealing with diseases transmitted through
blood, mosquitoes or parasites. Covid-19, if it comes, could spread
quickly and unpredictably, which would test a cash-strapped health-care
system. Ian Clarke, chair of a private health federation based in
Uganda, worries that the mortality rates could be higher in Africa than
they are in China because many people already have weakened immune
systems as a result of HIV or poor nutrition. SARS mostly skipped
Africa; the continent may not be so lucky with the new virus.?
Correction (February 20th): An earlier version of this article misstated
the name of Ms. Messonnier. Sorry.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition
under the headline "Watchful waiting".
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