'Paid for the damn virus that's killing us': Giuliani rips Fauci over
grants to Wuhan laboratory
Newsletter published on April 30, 2020
(0) NYC nurse reports Neglect, Murder of COVID patients in NYC
Hospitals, Staff Indifference
(1) 'Paid for the damn virus that's killing us': Giuliani rips Fauci
over grants to Wuhan laboratory
(2) Fauci funded Wuhan lab's gain-of-function research, attempting to
get Bat viruses to infect human cells
(3) NLPC Seeks NIAID Documents Regarding Wuhan Lab and Pandemic
(4) Fauci says Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases are here to stay
(5) Fauci's map of "Global Examples of emerging and re-emerging
infectious diseases"
(6) Ralph Baric speaking about Pandemics, University of North Carolina,
May 2018
(7) Francis Boyle interview with Dr. Joseph Mercola, April 26, 2020
(8) Francis Boyle interview with Dr. Joseph Mercola, April 26, 2020 -
transcript (pdf)
(9) SARS-CoV-2 was not derived from RaTG13 (contrary to Matt Ridley) -
Prof Edward Holmes
(10) London's homeless swap the pavement for hotel suites
(11) Bondi-Newport side-by-side comparison not flattering for Californians
(0) NYC nurse reports Neglect, Murder of COVID patients in NYC
Hospitals, Staff Indifference
From: "Tom and Kathy" <kdtd007@charter.net>
Subject: NYC Nurse Sound The Alarm
NYC City Nurse Reports Neglect, Murder of COVID patients in NYC
Hospitals, Staff Indifference.
You can also watch it on YouTube (if they haven’t removed it yet).
Kathy
History would be a wonderful thing if only it were true -Tolstoy
(1) 'Paid for the damn virus that's killing us': Giuliani rips Fauci
over grants to Wuhan laboratory
From: Liliana_Dumitrescu <marquisdeart@embarqmail.com>
by Madison Dibble
April 26, 2020 01:38 PM
Rudy Giuliani questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci's involvement in grants from
the United States to a laboratory in Wuhan, China, that has been tied to
the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a report, the U.S. intelligence community has growing
confidence that the current coronavirus strain may have accidentally
escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology rather than having
originated at a wildlife market, as the Chinese Communist Party first
claimed. During a Sunday interview on The Cats Roundtable, Giuliani
questioned why the U.S. gave money to the lab.
"Back in 2014, the Obama administration prohibited the U.S. from giving
any money to any laboratory, including in the U.S., that was fooling
around with these viruses. Prohibited! Despite that, Dr. Fauci gave $3.7
million to the Wuhan laboratory — and then even after the State
Department issued reports about how unsafe that laboratory was, and how
suspicious they were in the way they were developing a virus that could
be transmitted to humans," he claimed.
He added, "We never pulled that money. So, something here is going on,
John. I don't want to make any accusations. But there was more knowledge
about what was going on in China with our scientific people than they
disclosed to us when this first came out. Just think of it: If this
laboratory turns out to be the place where the virus came from, we paid
for it. We paid for the damn virus that's killing us."
While Giuliani placed the blame on Fauci, who has been the director of
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, it
is not clear what oversight he had in the funding decisions. The NIAID
did award $3.7 million in grants to EcoHealth Alliance to study the
"risk of future coronavirus (CoV) emergence from wildlife using in-depth
field investigations across the human-wildlife interface in China" at
wet markets, but not all of that funding went to the lab in Wuhan.
President Trump has been asked about the matter and blamed the Obama
administration for the donation, saying, "Who is president then, I
wonder?" However, the funding was approved from 2014 to 2019, including
$700,000 that was awarded under the Trump administration.
Giuliani called for an investigation into the Wuhan laboratory, saying,
"Today, if I were U.S. attorney, I'd open an investigation into the
Wuhan laboratory. And I'd want to know, what did we know? How much did
we know about how bad the practices were there? Who knew about it? And
who sent them money anyway? And that person would sure as heck be in
front of a grand jury trying to explain to me — what are you asleep?"
(2) Fauci funded Wuhan lab's gain-of-function research, attempting to
get Bat viruses to infect human cells
DR. FAUCI BACKED CONTROVERSIAL WUHAN LAB WITH MILLIONS OF U.S. DOLLARS
FOR RISKY CORONAVIRUS RESEARCH
BY FRED GUTERL ON 4/28/20 AT 2:57 PM EDT 00:25
Dr. Anthony Fauci is an adviser to President Donald Trump and something
of an American folk hero for his steady, calm leadership during the
pandemic crisis. At least one poll shows that Americans trust Fauci more
than Trump on the coronavirus pandemic—and few scientists are portrayed
on TV by Brad Pitt.
But just last year, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious
Diseases, the organization led by Dr. Fauci, funded scientists at the
Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on
gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.
In 2019, with the backing of NIAID, the National Institutes of Health
committed $3.7 million over six years for research that included some
gain-of-function work. The program followed another $3.7 million, 5-year
project for collecting and studying bat coronaviruses, which ended in
2019, bringing the total to $7.4 million.
Many scientists have criticized gain of function research, which
involves manipulating viruses in the lab to explore their potential for
infecting humans, because it creates a risk of starting a pandemic from
accidental release.
SARS-CoV-2 , the virus now causing a global pandemic, is believed to
have originated in bats. U.S. intelligence, after originally asserting
that the coronavirus had occurred naturally, conceded last month that
the pandemic may have originated in a leak from the Wuhan lab. (At this
point most scientists say it's possible—but not likely—that the pandemic
virus was engineered or manipulated.)
Dr. Fauci did not respond to Newsweek's requests for comment. NIH
responded with a statement that said in part: "Most emerging human
viruses come from wildlife, and these represent a significant threat to
public health and biosecurity in the US and globally, as demonstrated by
the SARS epidemic of 2002-03, and the current COVID-19 pandemic....
scientific research indicates that there is no evidence that suggests
the virus was created in a laboratory."
The Controversial Experiments and Wuhan Lab Suspected of Starting
PandemicREAD MORE The NIH research consisted of two parts. The first
part began in 2014 and involved surveillance of bat coronaviruses, and
had a budget of $3.7 million. The program funded Shi Zheng-Li, a
virologist at the Wuhan lab, and other researchers to investigate and
catalogue bat coronaviruses in the wild. This part of the project was
completed in 2019.
A second phase of the project, beginning that year, included additional
surveillance work but also gain-of-function research for the purpose of
understanding how bat coronaviruses could mutate to attack humans. The
project was run by EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit research group,
under the direction of President Peter Daszak, an expert on disease
ecology. NIH canceled the project just this past Friday, April 24th,
Politico reported. Daszak did not immediately respond to Newsweek
requests for comment.
The project proposal states: "We will use S protein sequence data,
infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments
and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that %
divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential."
In layman's terms, "spillover potential" refers to the ability of a
virus to jump from animals to humans, which requires that the virus be
able to attach to receptors in the cells of humans. SARS-CoV-2, for
instance, is adept at binding to the ACE2 receptor in human lungs and
other organs.
According to Richard Ebright, an infectious disease expert at Rutgers
University, the project description refers to experiments that would
enhance the ability of bat coronavirus to infect human cells and
laboratory animals using techniques of genetic engineering. In the wake
of the pandemic, that is a noteworthy detail.
Ebright, along with many other scientists, has been a vocal opponent of
gain-of-function research because of the risk it presents of creating a
pandemic through accidental release from a lab.
Dr. Fauci is renowned for his work on the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1990s.
Born in Brooklyn, he graduated first in his class from Cornell
University Medical College in 1966. As head of NIAID since 1984, he has
served as an adviser to every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan.
A decade ago, during a controversy over gain-of-function research on
bird-flu viruses, Dr. Fauci played an important role in promoting the
work. He argued that the research was worth the risk it entailed because
it enables scientists to make preparations, such as investigating
possible anti-viral medications, that could be useful if and when a
pandemic occurred.
The work in question was a type of gain-of-function research that
involved taking wild viruses and passing them through live animals until
they mutate into a form that could pose a pandemic threat. Scientists
used it to take a virus that was poorly transmitted among humans and
make it into one that was highly transmissible—a hallmark of a pandemic
virus. This work was done by infecting a series of ferrets, allowing the
virus to mutate until a ferret that hadn't been deliberately infected
contracted the disease.
The work entailed risks that worried even seasoned researchers. More
than 200 scientists called for the work to be halted. The problem, they
said, is that it increased the likelihood that a pandemic would occur
through a laboratory accident.
Dr. Fauci defended the work. "[D]etermining the molecular Achilles' heel
of these viruses can allow scientists to identify novel antiviral drug
targets that could be used to prevent infection in those at risk or to
better treat those who become infected," wrote Fauci and two co-authors
in the Washington Post on December 30, 2011. "Decades of experience
tells us that disseminating information gained through biomedical
research to legitimate scientists and health officials provides a
critical foundation for generating appropriate countermeasures and,
ultimately, protecting the public health."
Nevertheless, in 2014, under pressure from the Obama administration, the
National of Institutes of Health instituted a moratorium on the work,
suspending 21 studies.
Three years later, though—in December 2017—the NIH ended the moratorium
and the second phase of the NIAID project, which included the
gain-of-function research, began. The NIH established a framework for
determining how the research would go forward: scientists have to get
approval from a panel of experts, who would decide whether the risks
were justified.
The reviews were indeed conducted—but in secret, for which the NIH has
drawn criticism. In early 2019, after a reporter for Science magazine
discovered that the NIH had approved two influenza research projects
that used gain of function methods, scientists who oppose this kind of
research excoriated the NIH in an editorial in the Washington Post.
"We have serious doubts about whether these experiments should be
conducted at all," wrote Tom Inglesby of Johns Hopkins University and
Marc Lipsitch of Harvard. "[W]ith deliberations kept behind closed
doors, none of us will have the opportunity to understand how the
government arrived at these decisions or to judge the rigor and
integrity of that process."
(3) NLPC Seeks NIAID Documents Regarding Wuhan Lab and Pandemic
Posted on April 28, 2020 by Peter Flaherty
Today, the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a nonprofit public
interest organization, filed a Freedom of Information Request (FOIA)
with the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectiousness Diseases
(NIAID) at NIH seeking all documents in its possession and that of
Director, Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., regarding grants of $3.7 million first
given in 2015 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China or
through grants given to EcoHealth Alliance to experiment with bats and
coronaviruses.
The FOIA request noted the Trump Administration recently terminated all
funding to EcoHealth which was initiated during the Obama Administration.
"It is outrageous that U.S. taxpayers have been funding millions of
dollars to the Wuhan, China laboratory, which had a history of safety
problems since January 2018 that may have led to the release of the
novel coronavirus causing a worldwide pandemic." said Peter Flaherty,
Chair of NLPC. The request also seeks documents related to the coverup
by China for not fully and timely disclosing the novel coronavirus as
well as the World Health Organization, which was complicit by praising
China for its delayed disclosure and cooperation.
"The documents subject to the FOIA request will shed light on the
timeline of NIAID's knowledge of the existence and spreading of the
coronavirus from China, WHO, the State Department and other agencies,"
said Paul Kamenar, counsel for NLPC who drafted and filed the request.
Here is the FOIA text:
April 28, 2020
National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Re: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST OF THE NATIONAL LEGAL AND POLICY
CENTER- RE: NIAID GRANTS TO WUHAN INSTITUTE OF VIROLOGY REGARDING
CORONAVIRUS EXPERIMENTS AND RELATED RECORDS
Dear Ms. Schofield:
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 USC 552, et seq.
and Health and Human Services (HHS) FOIA regulations, 45 C.F.R. Part 5,
the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) hereby requests the release
of the following records: any and all grants and funding given by the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to the
Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan, China or through other
grantees including EcoHealth Alliance from 2014 to the present,
including a $3.7 million grant given on or about 2015, for coronavirus
experiments including those on mammals and bats, and all documents
related to those grants, including but not limited to applications for
the grants, studies, reports, audits, lab inspections, correspondence,
memoranda, cables, and all emails to or from Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., the
Director of NIAID related to the, including the recent decision by the
Trump Administration to terminate such funding.[1]
NLPC also requests all documents, including memoranda, correspondence,
and emails, to or from Dr. Fauci from December 1, 2019 to the present
from or to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, EcoHealth Alliance, the
World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), Deborah H. Birx, M.D., U.S. Special Representative for
Global Health Diplomacy-Department of State, or any employee of those
agencies including NIAID, that refer to the novel coronavirus and
COVID-19, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the epicenter of the
coronavirus and its outbreak in Wuhan, China, and the coverup by China
and WHO for failing to fully and timely disclose information on the
extent of the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China that led to a
worldwide pandemic.
NLPC. Founded in 1991, NLPC is a non-profit public interest organization
based in the Washington, D.C. area and promotes ethics in public life
and government accountability through research, investigation, education
and legal action. See www.nlpc.org. NLPC has filed other FOIA requests
and lawsuits on other matters of public interest as well as complaints
with the Federal Election Commission and Congressional Ethics Committees
for violations of election law and ethics rules as part of its
Government Integrity Project
Of particular relevance to this FOIA request, NLPC has disseminated
commentary and analysis on its website about Chinese Communist officials
falsely accusing the United States as being the source of patient zero
and spreading its propaganda via Twitter and social media. Twitter
Should Remove the ChiComs for Lying About Coronavirus [...] ==
From: "Liliana_Dumitrescu" <marquisdeart@embarqmail.com> Subject: I
laughed with hot tears - Fauci facing Giuliani the bulldog - absolutely
hilarious
(4) Fauci says Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases are here to stay
Anthony Fauci faces the 'perpetual challenge' of emerging infections
Publish date: March 31, 2017
By Doug Brunk MDedge News
EXPERT ANALYSIS FROM ACP INTERNAL MEDICINE
SAN DIEGO – Reflecting on his 33-year career as director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony S. Fauci, MD, can
say one thing for certain: Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases
in the continental United States are here to stay.
In an article that he and his colleagues published in the Lancet in
2008, they used the term "perpetual challenge" to describe emerging
infections, a descriptor that resonates with him to this day.
"When you think about emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, they
have always been with us, they are clearly with us now, and we will
certainly be seeing them in the future in an absolute predictable way,"
Dr. Fauci told a capacity crowd during a keynote lecture on the opening
day of the annual meeting of the American College of Physicians.
Global examples of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases he
discussed include dengue, West Nile virus, chikungunya, and
carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, "which is becoming a
progressively more serious problem in hospitalized patients," said Dr.
Fauci, who is also chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation.
"We had a serious challenge with that at our own clinical center in
Bethesda just a few years ago," he noted. Numerous cases of
antimicrobial resistance in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus,
Clostridium difficile, and Neisseria gonorrhoeae have been reported.
Dr. Fauci described the Ebola outbreak as "a globally important disease
that had ripple effects in the United States that were unpredicted,"
referring to the case of the infected man who traveled from Monrovia to
Dallas on Sept. 19, 2014, and developed Ebola symptoms 5 days later.
Between 2014 and 2016, there were 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths
combined in the countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
"There is virtually no health care system in those three countries," he
said. "There's a distrust in authority, and anything we tried to do as a
global health [effort] made things worse. What we're trying to do now is
built sustainable health care issues in countries that don't have it."
Of particular concern to public health officials worldwide is getting a
lid on Zika virus, a mosquito-borne illness that can be passed from a
pregnant woman to her fetus and cause an increased risk of microcephaly,
particularly during the first trimester.
"Not only is there microcephaly, there's a whole host of abnormalities
that involve hearing loss, visual abnormalities, and a variety of other
issues," Dr. Fauci said. "There are about 50 countries in the Americas
and the Caribbean that have Zika virus transmission."
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
from Jan. 1, 2015, to March 29, 2017, there were 5,182 reported cases of
Zika virus disease in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The
majority of those (4,886) were travel associated, 222 were locally
acquired mosquito-borne, 45 were sexually transmitted, 27 congenital, 1
was laboratory acquired, and 1 was unknown.
At the same time, there have been 38,303 cases in the U.S. territories.
Of those, 38,156 were locally acquired, and 147 were travel associated.
"That's why there's such an intense effort to develop a Zika vaccine,"
he said.
According to the CDC, as of March 15, 2017, there are 265 cases of
locally transmitted cases in Florida: 216 by mosquito and the rest by
sexual transmission. "Talk about surprises," Dr. Fauci said. "Zika is
the first mosquito-borne infection that can result in a congenital
abnormality, the first mosquito-borne infection that can be sexually
transmitted, and now we're learning more about this problem, which is
the reason why it's very important for us to develop a vaccine."
A phase I trial of a DNA vaccine developed by the NIH Vaccine Research
Center has reached its enrollment goal of 80 patients age 18-35 years.
Initial results are expected sometime in the first quarter of 2017. A
phase II trial in the United States and Puerto Rico is expected to
launch soon.
Dr. Fauci closed his presentation by sharing lessons learned from
previous pandemics.
The first lesson is that global surveillance is required. "Namely, know
what's going on in real time," he said. "That has to be linked to
transparency and communication. So that if something happens in China,
we don't find out about it months later, but we know about it in real time."
Infrastructure and capacity building are also important. "The lack of
capacity in West Africa can ultimately have an indirect impact on us
here in the United States," he said.
"Finally, we need to coordinate and collaborate; we need adaptable
platforms for vaccines," Dr. Fauci cautioned. "Importantly, we need a
stable funding mechanism such as a public health emergency fund so that
we do not have to go scrambling before the Congress when we need
emergency funds."
(5) Fauci's map of "Global Examples of emerging and re-emerging
infectious diseases"
View the map (below) and print it; bear in mind that Francis Boyle says
that a number of these infectious diseases escaped from US biolabs, eg
West Nile Disease & Lyme Disease escaped from Plum Island in New York
state. Boyle also raises questions about Ebola - Peter M.
Three Decades of Responding to Infectious Disease Outbreaks
NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Highlights Lessons from AIDS to Zika
November 14, 2017
Map showing global examples of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases
Soon after his appointment in 1984 as director of the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National
Institutes of Health, Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., testified before Congress
showing a world map annotated with a single emerging infectious disease
threat, HIV/AIDS. Since then, diseases and pathogens including
chikungunya, H1N1 influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),
West Nile, Ebola and Zika viruses were added, providing a powerful
visual reminder of the enduring need to anticipate, detect and manage
new and emerging infectious diseases around the globe. In an essay in
Annals of Internal Medicine published online today, Dr. Fauci reflects
on the ways efforts have been marshalled to address infectious disease
outbreaks of the past three decades.
Initial responses to a newly recognized disease, now known as HIV/AIDS,
in the early 1980s were criticized as being too slow, the essay notes.
"The insidious emergence of HIV/AIDS and the lack of due attention by
policymakers illustrate how some outbreaks that start subtly can grow to
global proportions if they are not aggressively addressed early on," Dr.
Fauci writes. Between the early 1980s and the early 1990s, federal
funding for HIV/AIDS research increased markedly, reaching $1 billion by
the end of 1992. The accelerated government response supported both
research and research infrastructure, and yielded advances in countering
the HIV/AIDS pandemic domestically and internationally. Ultimately,
notes Dr. Fauci, sustained support for scientific research coupled with
political and community engagement helped transform HIV/AIDS from a
nearly universally fatal disease to a condition that can be managed with
appropriate treatment.
In contrast to HIV/AIDS, when outbreaks of respiratory diseases caused
by SARS coronavirus and influenza viruses have occurred, they generated
immediate widespread public attention and prompted concerted responses
by presidential administrations and Congress. For example, the 2009
influenza pandemic began in April and an experimental vaccine entered
clinical trials by August. However, despite intense efforts to test and
manufacture the new vaccine, adequate supplies to protect the broad U.S.
population were not available until early winter, after the outbreak had
peaked. "This experience," writes Dr. Fauci, "served as a striking
reminder of the inadequacy of our pandemic preparedness capabilities and
underscored the need, now being actively pursued, to develop platform
technologies that can be applied rapidly to develop vaccines for
evolving outbreaks."
The essay also considers how presidential administrations have responded
to the appearance of pathogens ranging from West Nile virus and Ebola
to, most recently, the arrival of Zika virus in the Americas.
"Leadership at the NIAID has learned many valuable lessons through
experiences during the prior administrations with regard to optimal
responses to such outbreaks," Dr. Fauci concludes. "It is critical to
apply these lessons to the infectious disease threats that we will
inevitably face in the current administration and beyond."
ARTICLE: CI Paules, et al. What recent history has taught us about
responding to emerging infectious disease threats. Annals of Internal
Medicine DOI: 10.7326/M17-2496 (2017).
WHO: NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., is available to discuss his
paper.
Contact To schedule interviews, contact
Anne A. Oplinger
(301) 402-1663
(6) Ralph Baric speaking about Pandemics, University of North Carolina,
May 2018
Baric's lab at UNC engaged in Gain-of-Function research on Bat
Coronaviruses in 2015, during which they modified existing viruses,
making them more deadly. Shi Zhengli of Wuhan Institute of Virology was
a participant; she and Xingyi Ge (also from WIV) did the genetic
engineering for Ralph Baric at UNC, to develop a Coronavirus that could
infect humans directly without animal mediation. The two sides jointly
funded the resaearch. At the time, Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist with
the Louis Pasteur Institute of Paris warned: "If the [new] virus
escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory." Details at
http://mailstar.net/coronavirus.html . For this reason, it is worth
watching the youtube of Baric speaking, below. - Peter M. ).
From: Jezreel Spencer <jezreel@softwarebbd.com>
symposium April 4-6, 2018, at the William and Ida Friday Center in
Chapel Hill, N.C.
29:35 / 37:46
COVID-19
Imagining the Next Flu Pandemic – and Preventing it!
29 May 2018
Host and Moderator: Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH, Dean and Alumni
Distinguished Professor, Gillings School of Global Public Health,
UNC-Chapel Hill
"Imagining the Next Flu Pandemic – and Preventing it!"
Ralph Baric, PhD, Professor, Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global
Public Health; Professor, Microbiology and Immunology, School of
Medicine; UNC-Chapel Hill
About the Symposium
This interdisciplinary symposium to mark the 100th anniversary of one of
the deadliest pandemics in human history took place April 4-6, 2018, at
the William and Ida Friday Center in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Symposium events offered perspectives from the vantage points of
medicine, health, social sciences and the humanities. Speakers included
leading experts in epidemiology, virology, medicine, communications,
literature, history, ethics, policy and other fields.
Sponsors included UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, UNC
Libraries, UNC’s Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases,
the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and RTI International.
(7) Francis Boyle interview with Dr. Joseph Mercola, April 26, 2020
From: "Liliana_Dumitrescu" <marquisdeart@embarqmail.com>
Subject: Latest Interview of Professor Boyle with Dr. Mercola dated
April 26, 2020
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Francis Boyle, who for decades has advocated against the development and
use of bioweapons, suspects COVID-19 is a weaponized pathogen that
escaped from Wuhan City’s Biosafety Level 4 facility, which was
specifically set up to research coronaviruses and SARS
According to Boyle, the COVID-19 virus is a chimera. It includes SARS,
an already weaponized coronavirus, along with HIV genetic material and
possibly flu virus. It also has gain of function properties that allow
it to spread a greater distance than normal
The incubation period for COVID-19 infection is still unknown, but
estimates range from 14 days to 30 days
The U.S. government spent $100 billion on biological warfare programs
since September 11, 2001, up until October 2015
While there have so far only been a limited number of reported cases of
COVID-19 infection in the U.S., the U.S. military has designated several
detention sites around the country to quarantine Americans, should the
situation take a turn for the worse
(8) Francis Boyle interview with Dr. Joseph Mercola, April 26, 2020 -
transcript (pdf)
SARS-CoV-2: A Possible Form of Biological Warfare - A Special Interview
With Dr. Francis Boyle
Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola
April 26, 2020
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Francis Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of
1989, believes COVID-19 is a weaponized pathogen that escaped from Wuhan
City’s Biosafety Level (BSL) 4 facility
A Lancet paper published by physicians who treated some of the first
COVID-19 patients in China showed that patient zero, the one believed to
have started the transmission, was nowhere near the Wuhan seafood
market. What’s more, there were no bats sold in or even close to the market
SARS-CoV-2 appears to be a benign bat coronavirus modified to integrate
spike proteins that allows the virus to enter human cells by attaching
to ACE-2 receptors
The virus also appears to have been modified to integrate an envelope
protein from HIV called GP141, which tends to impair the immune system.
A third modification appears to involve nanotechnology, which allows the
virus to remain airborne longer.
(9) SARS-CoV-2 was not derived from RaTG13 (contrary to Matt Ridley) -
Prof Edward Holmes
Statement from Prof Edward Holmes on the SARS-CoV-2 virus
16 April 2020
On the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19 [...]
"The closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2 is a bat virus named RaTG13,
which was kept at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There is some
unfounded speculation that this virus was the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
However:
(i) RaTG13 was sampled from a different province of China (Yunnan) to
where COVID-19 first appeared; and
(ii) the level of genome sequence divergence between SARS-CoV-2 and
RaTG13 is equivalent to an average of 50 years (and at least 20 years)
of evolutionary change.
"Hence, SARS-CoV-2 was not derived from RaTG13. " [...]
Professor Edward Holmes is an Australian Research Council Laureate
Fellow, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Fellow of
the Royal Society in London.
He has published six academic papers this year on the genome and origin
of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans.
(10) London's homeless swap the pavement for hotel suites
Homeless swap the streets for hotel suites during coronavirus lockdown
In an ambitious social experiment, almost 5,500 unoccupied beds around
the country are being given to rough sleepers
Christina Lamb
Sunday April 26 2020, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times
Jamie Loftus looks round his hotel room in west London and marvels.
"I’ve got a balcony, a shower, a bidet, a 28in telly, a bed they change
twice a week and three meals coming every day," he says. "What can you
say wrong about that?"
Until a week ago his home was a patch of pavement outside the ticket
office of Westminster Tube station. His bathroom was the public lavatory
and his food supply dependent on begging from passers-by. He says the
Tory peer Lord Holmes often gave him a fiver and occasionally even
bought him supper in the pub. Michael Gove once bought him a pint.
Now Loftus and thousands of other rough sleepers in London and across
the UK find themselves in hotels, part of an astonishing social
experiment that could provide a silver lining for some in the time of
the coronavirus.
(11) Bondi-Newport side-by-side comparison not flattering for Californians
Bondi-Newport side-by-side comparison not flattering for Californians
A side-by-side comparison between Bondi Beach and a popular Californian
beach tell part of the story of Australia’s success in combating
coronavirus.
Bondi and Bronte Beaches reopen to surfers and swimmers as Australia
flattens the curve
As Bondi Beach reopens and Australia slowly returns to a life resembling
pre-COVID-19 social conditions, the envy is palpable.
Australia’s handling of the pandemic has placed it in rare company among
nations who can genuinely look ahead with some optimism.
The death toll from the virus in Australia is 84 and new infections have
slowed dramatically — NSW had just five new cases of coronavirus overnight.
The story is much different in other developed nations including the
United States and Britain where death tolls have soared past 50,000 and
20,000 respectively.
Harvard Professor David Sinclair shared a side-by-side comparison on
social media overnight that tells two remarkably different stories.
Next to images of an empty Bondi Beach and an overcrowded Newport Beach
in California, he wrote: "California & Australia have similar
populations but only Australia crushed #COVID-19. New cases = 1000 vs 9
per day. While the pundits argue about the cause, see if you notice a
difference between Newport & Bondi. It’s a clue."
California & Australia have similar populations but only Australia
crushed #COVID19. New cases = 1000 vs 9 per day. While the pundits argue
about the cause, see if you notice a difference between Newport & Bondi.
It's a clue. pic.twitter.com/TNHbFpiqJu
— David Sinclair, PhD (@davidasinclair) April 27, 2020 He also shared a
timeline showing how Australia combated the virus, citing closed
borders, a test that worked and strict social distancing rules.
"I miss the days when we were the role model for how to get things
done," he wrote on Twitter.
Here's the timeline of how the Aussies did it. They closed borders
early, developed a national #COVID19 test that worked 1st time &
temporarily banned gatherings >2 people. I miss the days when we were
the role model for how to get things done. https://t.co/psiz6BAxtG
pic.twitter.com/ghHjIwUlnF
— David Sinclair, PhD (@davidasinclair) April 27, 2020 The Newport
example is striking. Pictures from the popular Orange County beach
earlier this week show why Americans like Prof Sinclair are concerned.
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