Friday, June 5, 2020

1179 1981 thriller depicted a Chinese military lab in Wuhan that creates a virus as a biological weapon; cf 1898 novel about an ocean liner that sank in the Atlantic after striking an iceberg

1981 thriller depicted a Chinese military lab in Wuhan that creates a
virus as a biological weapon; cf 1898 novel about an ocean liner that
sank in the Atlantic after striking an iceberg

Newsletter published on May 9, 2020

(1) Wuhan conducted a Drill on Sept 18 simulating a Coronavirus
infection, one month before Military Games
(2) Wuhan drill began Sept 18, included nuclear radiation monitoring &
simulated Coronavirus patient
(3) 1981 thriller depicted a Chinese military lab in Wuhan that creates
a virus as a biological weapon
(4) Virus was called Wuhan-400; cf 1898 novel about an ocean liner that
sank in the Atlantic after striking an iceberg
(5) Scientific evidence that Wuhan coronavirus is man-made - nerdhaspower
(6) Matthew Ehret ignores Luc Montagnier finding of HIV in Covid-19, but
praises his work on Water Memory
(7) Luc Montagnier's heretical work on 'Water Memory'
(8) Homeopathy journal explores WaterMemory effects
(9) Brazil's Gangs impose Lockdown in Favelas, to Fight COVID-19

(1) Wuhan conducted a Drill on Sept 18 simulating a Coronavirus
infection, one month before Military Games


Chinese Government Foreknowledge? Drill for Coronavirus 30 Days Before
Wuhan Military Games

MAKIA FREEMAN

28 February 2020

Chinese Government foreknowledge is a now another factor in the
mysterious and ongoing coronavirus epidemic. Thanks to the brave
reporting of Chinese citizen journalist Jennifer Zeng (and Spiro Skouras
for his video interview), we have learnt some shocking information: the
Chinese Government ran a drill or exercise on September 18th, 2019, in
Wuhan, where they simulated a response for … a novel coronavirus strain!
What are the chances of the Chinese authorities randomly choosing to
practice for a coronavirus entering their country, given the thousands
of pathogens and diseases they could have practiced for? This drill was
held exactly 30 days before the key date of October 18th, 2019 – the
same date when the Wuhan Military Games began and also the very same
date when Event 201 (Big Pharma, Bill Gates, China's CDC, America's CDC,
etc.) was held in the USA which was also simulating a 'fictional'
scenario of how to handle a coronavirus epidemic. Chinese Government
Foreknowledge Beyond the Realm of Coincidence

On her site, Zeng posted a English translation of the Chinese article
Wuhan Customs Holds 30 Days Countdown to Military Games and Emergency
Response Drill at Ports which revealed the drill, which is highly
reminiscent of Western (especially USG) false flag operations, which
usually contain telltale signs of manipulation such as foreknowledge and
'coincidental' drills for an attack or event which later becomes
reality. [...]

Implications

As Zeng says, the average person in China has no idea about the source
of the virus, the background to the epidemic and now this new
information on Chinese Government foreknowledge. The majority of people
there get their information via China's social media platforms such as
WeChat and Weibo – which are heavily monitored and censored. In fact,
there were draconian new laws just passed in China, which decree that
you get 15 years in jail for "spreading rumors" and the death sentence
for "purposely spreading (the coronavirus) disease." [...]

(2) Wuhan drill began Sept 18, included nuclear radiation monitoring &
simulated Coronavirus patient

ill-at-ports-30

Wuhan Customs Holds 30 Days Countdown to Military Games and Emergency
Response Drill at Ports

(Jennifer's note: Following is the  English translation done by Youth
Production of an official  Chinese repot )

Sep.18.2019 17:29  sina.com  927.hbtv.com.cn

This afternoon (September 18), an inbound flight from an unknown country
arrived at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport. All in a sudden, the
portal nuclear radiation monitoring system alarmed. Wuhan Tianhe
International Airport Customs, subordinate of Wuhan Customs, immediately
controlled and reinvestigated the passenger who triggered the alarm and
his baggage. It is found that the passenger was carrying a bottle of
"Myanmar ore" which seriously exceeded the standard radiation level.

Jennifer's note: There is no photo caption in the original report. Could
be people attending the drill.

In the meantime, an airline company reported that "A passenger on the
inbound flight felt uncomfortable, had trouble breathing, and showed
unstable vital signs". The airport customs immediately initiated the
contingency plan and quickly started to transfer the patient, clean the
aircraft, and further investigate those who had direct and indirect
contacts with the passenger. Two hours later, the Wuhan Emergency Center
reported that the patient had been clinically diagnosed as novel
coronavirus infection.

This picture shows the scene where the port emergency response drill was
held at the Wuhan airport during the day, in response to the 30-day
countdown to the 2019 Wuhan Customs Military Games. With the Military
Game opening within 30 days, the joint executive committee of the Wuhan
Customs and Military Games Commission held this emergency response drill
at the Wuhan Tianhe Airport, by the theme of "Safeguarding the Customs
and Ensuring the Security of the Military Games." The purpose of this
drill was to enhance risk prevention at the ports, to increase the
effectiveness of portal inspections, and to further strengthen the
ability of Wuhan Custom to react to urgent incidents, especially in
areas of public health and possible nuclear radiation overshoots.

Emphasizing on "practical operation and practical results in practical
events," the drill was performed as if it was real, simulating an actual
case of the Novel Coronavirus infection as recently discovered in the
Wuhan airport. The drill practice involved epidemiological
investigation, medical screening, temporary quarantine zone setting,
isolation detention, case transfer, sanitary treatment, and other
crucial risk management steps. Moreover, the drill also carefully
simulated a recent discovery of baggage with overshooting nuclear radiation.

Wu Yang, director of the Infectious Disease Prevention and Control
Department of the Hubei Disease Control and Prevention Center of Hubei,
said that the customs, as the forefront of the prevention and control of
infectious diseases, has become the first guardian of the country's
security. According to the Wuhan customs, the current situation of risk
prevention and control in the country is very serious, among which
nuclear security is an important part of national security as it
concerns national security, people's health, social stability, economic
development and the major country status. In 2018, the Chinese customs
conducted strict quarantine inspection at ports of entry and exit,
monitored body temperature of 650 million people, detected more than
15,000 cases of infectious diseases, monitored 1,049,000 people for
physical examination, and detected more than 12,000 cases of infectious
diseases.

According to Wuhan Airport Customs vice Deputy Li Zhenhan, the customs
has done a great deal of work in the early stage to ensure the safety of
the ports, and has formulated eight emergency plans, including nuclear
and radiation safety incidents, chemical emergencies, biological
emergencies, foodborne disease emergencies at ports, public health
emergencies at ports, and animal and plant quarantine emergencies at
ports; It has established an emergency response system with
comprehensive coverage, rapid response, efficient operation and proper
handling; A disposal expert group and a liaison group were established;
The portal type nuclear radiation monitoring system has been adopted,
and a working mechanism of radiation detection has been formed, which
includes initial detection alarm, quantitative and qualitative analysis
and personal protection; The customs has strengthened cooperation with
the provincial Health Commission and the Wuhan Institute of Virology of
the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and established mechanisms for
notifying the epidemic, transferring cases, and cooperating on key
infectious diseases; It has carried out special combat training, desktop
rehearsal and large-scale actual combat drill in real time to strengthen
emergency coordination and handling capacity; It has set up quick
screening room for the entire port and sent more nurses to the station
to improve the quality of sample. [...]

(Reporter Yang Jun, Correspondent Chen Liling)

Original Chinese report at http://bit.ly/2P9PPcE

(3) 1981 thriller depicted a Chinese military lab in Wuhan that creates
a virus as a biological weapon


A virus called Wuhan-400 makes people terribly ill … in a Dean Koontz
thriller from 1981. How is it that some books appear to prophesy events?

JAYMIE ICKE

14 February 2020

'The Eyes of Darkness, a 1981 thriller by bestselling suspense author
Dean Koontz, tells of a Chinese military lab that creates a virus as
part of its biological weapons programme. The lab is located in Wuhan,
which lends the virus its name, Wuhan-400. A chilling literary
coincidence or a case of writer as unwitting prophet?

In The Eyes of Darkness, a grieving mother, Christina Evans, sets out to
discover whether her son Danny died on a camping trip or if – as
suspicious messages suggest – he is still alive. She eventually tracks
him down to a military facility where he is being held after being
accidentally contaminated with man-made microorganisms created at the
research centre in Wuhan.

If that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up, read this
passage from the book: "It was around that time that a Chinese scientist
named Li Chen moved to the United States while carrying a floppy disk of
data from China's most important and dangerous new biological weapon of
the past decade. They call it Wuhan-400 because it was developed in
their RDNA laboratory just outside the city of Wuhan."In another strange
coincidence, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses China's only
level four biosafety laboratory, the highest-level classification of
labs that study the deadliest viruses, is just 32km from the epicentre
of the current coronavirus outbreak

The opening of the maximum-security lab was covered in a 2017 story in
the journal Nature, which warned of safety risks in a culture where
hierarchy trumps an open culture.

(4) Virus was called Wuhan-400; cf 1898 novel about an ocean liner that
sank in the Atlantic after striking an iceberg


A virus called Wuhan-400 causes outbreak … in a Dean Koontz thriller
from 1981. How is it that some books appear to prophesy events? The Eyes
of Darkness features a Chinese military lab in Wuhan that creates a
virus as a bioweapon; civilians soon become sick after accidentally
contracting it

In fact, the one lab in China able to handle the deadliest viruses is in
Wuhan and helped sequence the novel coronavirus the world is currently
battling

Kate Whitehead

Published: 6:21pm, 13 Feb, 2020

The Eyes of Darkness, a 1981 thriller by bestselling suspense author
Dean Koontz, tells of a Chinese military lab that creates a virus as
part of its biological weapons programme. The lab is located in Wuhan,
which lends the virus its name, Wuhan-400. A chilling literary
coincidence or a case of writer as unwitting prophet?

In The Eyes of Darkness, a grieving mother, Christina Evans, sets out to
discover whether her son Danny died on a camping trip or if – as
suspicious messages suggest – he is still alive. She eventually tracks
him down to a military facility where he is being held after being
accidentally contaminated with man-made microorganisms created at the
research centre in Wuhan.

If that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up, read this
passage from the book: "It was around that time that a Chinese scientist
named Li Chen moved to the United States while carrying a floppy disk of
data from China's most important and dangerous new biological weapon of
the past decade. They call it Wuhan-400 because it was developed in
their RDNA laboratory just outside the city of Wuhan."

In another strange coincidence, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which
houses China's only level four biosafety laboratory, the highest-level
classification of labs that study the deadliest viruses, is just 32km
from the epicentre of the current coronavirus outbreak. The opening of
the maximum-security lab was covered in a 2017 story in the journal
Nature, which warned of safety risks in a culture where hierarchy trumps
an open culture.

Fringe conspiracy theories that the coronavirus involved in the current
outbreak appears to be man-made and likely escaped from the Wuhan
virology lab have been circulated, but have been widely debunked. In
fact the lab was one of the first to sequence the coronavirus.

In Koontz's thriller, the virus is considered the "perfect weapon"
because it only affects humans and, since it cannot survive outside the
human body for longer than a minute, it does not demand expensive
decontamination once a population is wiped out, allowing the victors to
roll in and claim a conquered territory.

It's no exaggeration to call Koontz a prolific writer. His first book,
Star Quest, was published in 1968 and he has been churning out suspense
fiction at a phenomenal rate since with more than 80 novels and 74 works
of short fiction under his belt. The 74-year-old, a devout Catholic,
lives in California with his wife. But what are the odds of him so
closely predicting the future?

Albert Wan, who runs the Bleak House Books store in San Po Kong, says
Wuhan has historically been the site of numerous scientific research
facilities, including ones dealing with microbiology and virology.
"Smart, savvy writers like Koontz would have known all this and used
this bit of factual information to craft a story that is both convincing
and unsettling. Hence the Wuhan-400," says Wan.

British writer Paul French, who specialises in books about China, says
many of the elements around viruses in China relate back to the second
world war, which may have been a factor in Koontz's thinking.

"The Japanese definitely did do chemical weapons research in China,
which we mostly associate with Unit 731 in Harbin and northern China.
But they also stored chemical weapons in Wuhan – which Japan admitted,"
says French.

Publisher Pete Spurrier, who runs Hong Kong publishing house Blacksmith
Books, muses that for a fiction writer mapping out a thriller about a
virus outbreak set in China, Wuhan is a good choice.

"It's on the Yangtze River that goes east-west; it's on the high-speed
rail [line] that goes north-south; it's right at the crossroads of
transport networks in the centre of the country. Where better to start a
fictional epidemic, or indeed a real one?" says Spurrier. (Spurrier
works part-time as a subeditor for the Post.)

Hong Kong crime author Chan Ho-kei believes that this kind of
"fiction-prophecy" is not uncommon.

"If you look really hard, I bet you can spot prophecies for almost all
events. It makes me think about the 'infinite monkey' theorem," he says,
referring to the theory that a monkey hitting keys at random on a
typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely
type any given text.

"The probability is low, but not impossible."

Chan points to the 1898 novella Futility, which told the story of a huge
ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg.
Many uncanny similarities were noted between the fictional ship – called
Titan – and the real-life passenger ship RMS Titanic, which sank 14
years later. Following the sinking of the Titanic, the book was reissued
with some changes, particularly in the ship's gross tonnage.

"Fiction writers always try to imagine what the reality would be, so
it's very likely to write something like a prediction. Of course, it's
bizarre when the details collide, but I think it's just a matter of
mathematics," says Chan.

Many of Koontz's books have been adapted for television or the big
screen, but The Eyes of Darkness never achieved such glory. This bizarre
coincidence will thrust it into the spotlight and may see sales of this
otherwise forgotten thriller jump.

Amazon is currently offering it on Kindle for just US$1. Perhaps, like
Futility, it will also be reissued with some updates to make it really
echo the current outbreak.

(5) Scientific evidence that Wuhan coronavirus is man-made - nerdhaspower

Is it really like what they claimed – to understand the potentials of
coronaviruses and therefore better predict future emerging
coronaviruses? Why didn't they put as much effort on vaccine research or
drug discovery?

From: Samih Abdeen <samihabdeen@yahoo.com>


Scientific evidence and logic behind the claim that the Wuhan
coronavirus is man-made

3/15/2020 142 Comments

There has been much controversy regarding the origin of the Wuhan
coronavirus. It appears that both possibilities, naturally occurring or
man-made, are legitimate enough to be debated fully. However, although
voices on social media are equally strong from both sides, when it comes
to written pieces, there is a predominance of scientific literature and
other forms of writing that were produced to disapprove the "conspiracy
theory". In contrast, not nearly as much literature or other forms of
substantial writing have been put out to describe or argue for the other
possibility – this virus is man-made.  My goal here is to use scientific
evidence and logical thinking to evaluate, and legitimate, the
possibility that the Wuhan coronavirus (2019-nCoV, SARS2-CoV, etc.) is
of non-natural origin.

Importantly, I will base my reasoning on solid, credible evidence; I
will exclude any unqualified evidence that may have been thrown in by
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with an intention to disturb the
"investigation" and thereby cover up the truth. My role or perspective
here can be considered as a combination of a scientific reviewer, a
detective, and a judge on a criminal trial.

Why are people suspicious of the origin of the Wuhan coronavirus

This has a lot to do with how the sequence of this virus (in other
words, its genome) compares with those of related coronaviruses.

When comparing sequences, one can compare either gene sequences or
protein sequences. For viruses, however, this makes almost no difference
as the whole genome of a virus is practically translated into proteins
(in fact, a virus typically produces a single polyprotein by translating
its entire genome and then cuts this long polyprotein at specific places
to produce a set of particular proteins for specific use). Here, we will
compare different viruses only on their protein sequences.

By doing such a comparison, one can see that the Wuhan coronavirus is
about 86% identical to the SARS coronavirus, which caused a pandemic
back in 2003. This level of sequence identity basically says that the
Wuhan coronavirus could not have come from SARS, something the field
agrees unanimously.

At the same time, the Wuhan coronavirus is STRANGELY similar to two bat
coronaviruses, ZC45 and ZXC21. Overall, the sequence of either of the
two bat coronaviruses is 95% identical to the Wuhan coronavirus. In
fact, for most part of the genome, such level of identity is maintained
or even surpassed. The E protein, in particular, is 100% identical. The
nucleocapsid is 94% identical. The membrane protein is 98.6% identical.
The S2 portion (2nd half) of the spike protein is 95% identical.
However, when it comes to the S1 portion (1st half) of the spike
protein, the sequence identity suddenly drops to 69%. This pattern of
sequence conservation, between either of the closely related bat
coronaviruses and the Wuhan coronavirus, is extremely rare and strange!

This is extremely rare because natural evolution typically takes place
when changes (mutations) occur randomly across the whole genome. You
would then expect the rate of mutation being more or less the same for
all parts of the genome.

Could other forms of evolution lead to such a strange pattern of
sequence identity? Yes, there is one evolutionary event that could lead
to drastic changes in only one part of the genome. It is what is called
"recombination". We would defer to the next section to explain why
recombination is also practically impossible in this case.

For now, let's fix our eyes on the part that is seeing this sudden drop
of sequence identity, the S1 portion of the spike protein.

Figure 1. Coronavirus particle with spike proteins (red) decorating its
surface. Image from the CDC website (not a photo of a real virus, but a
model generated based on scientific knowledge).

Spike proteins are the protrusions that you see on the outside of the
virus particle (Figure 1). They are literally responsible for the name
"corona" as they make the virus look like a "crown". However, spike
proteins are located here for reasons beyond decoration. They are
actually the "key" that coronaviruses use to open the "lock" so that
viruses can enter our (host) cells.

Figure 2 shows the structure of the spike protein of the SARS virus
(such structure images are as real as photos of actual people). Given
the sequence similarity/conservation here, the spike protein of the
Wuhan coronavirus would look pretty much the same, which is indeed
confirmed by a recent publication (1).

Figure 2. Structure of the SARS spike protein and how it binds to human
ACE2 receptor. Pictures generated using the published structure (PDB ID:
6acj) (2).

A) Three spike proteins, each consisting of a S1 half and a S2 half,
form a trimer.

B) The S2 halves (shades of blue) are responsible for trimer formation,
while the S1 portion (shades of red) is important for binding human
receptor ACE2 (dark gray).

C) Details of the binding between S1 and human ACE2.

The part of S1 that is important and sufficient for binding are colored
in orange, with most crucial amino acid sidechains shown as sticks. This
orange piece is presumably what's "taken out of" SARS spike and
"inserted" into a bat coronavirus spike protein, thereby creating a
novel human-infecting coronavirus.

Three spike proteins have to come together to function properly as the
"key". This three-protein assembly is what they call a "trimer". To form
this trimer, you would need the blue portion of the spike protein, which
is referred to as S2 of spike. This S2 part can be regarded as the part
of the "key" that you hold with your fingers; it does not actually go
into the lock. However, for this "key" to work, S2 has to be there and
has to preserve the ability of forming trimers.

The other half of spike, the red portion or what is referred to as S1,
is responsible for binding the host receptor. S1 can be considered as
the portion of the "key" that literally enters the "lock". It has to fit
precisely to the delicate shape of the "lock" (host receptor) so that
the "door opening" action can be accomplished. Whether or not a
particular "lock" can be opened by a specific "key" is decided
exclusively by this S1 part of spike. In other words, S1 of a
coronavirus dictates which host(s) or cells the virus can infect.

Now you may be able to appreciate what I call extremely strange. While
everything else of the Wuhan coronavirus remains almost identical to the
two bat coronaviruses, the S1 portion, which dictates which host a
coronavirus targets, has changed significantly from the two bat
coronaviruses to the Wuhan coronavirus. [...]

Visit the link to see the diagrams. The main one is at

[...] Now let me explain why recombination also could not be responsible
for the observed pattern.

What happens in a recombination event is that one segment of a gene can
be "replaced" by a similar segment from another gene. In evolution,
recombination events happen much less frequently than random mutations.
When recombination happens, however, it often brings abrupt changes to
certain areas of the genome.

If naturally-occurring recombination event(s) lead to the creation of
the Wuhan coronavirus, how would it transpire? First, it would have to
take place when an ancestor bat coronavirus, something very similar to
ZC45 or ZXC21, co-existed with another coronavirus in the same cell of
the same animal. Under extremely rare circumstances, recombination may
occur, where a random piece in the ancestor's genome is replaced by a
similar but different piece from the other coronavirus. Importantly, to
go from such ancestor to the Wuhan coronavirus, one combination event is
not enough. What has to happen is that recombination has to take place
twice during the evolution of the Wuhan coronavirus. In one occasion,
the ancestor bat coronavirus would have to acquire, through
recombination with a SARS-like coronavirus, the precise short segment of
S1 that is responsible for human ACE2 interaction (region highlighted in
orange in both Figure 2 and Figure 3). In another occasion, the
"improved" bat coronavirus would further swap in a furin-cleavage site
through recombination with yet another coronavirus that carries a
furin-cleavage site between its S1 and S2 of spike.

Also, again, given the overall high sequence identity (95%) between the
bat coronaviruses and the Wuhan coronavirus, it is reasonable to believe
that these two diverged from each other fairly recently. Therefore, both
recombination events must have taken place fairly recently as well.

Now, we know that SARS crossing over to infect human is a very rare
event. To have another SARS-like sequence exist in nature so that the
ancestor bat coronavirus can do recombination with is a very unlike
event. Not to mention that this SARS-like virus must have a spike that
binds ACE2 the same way as SARS and yet the piece of S1 that is most
critical for binding ACE2 would differ with that of SARS spike only at
non-essential sites. On top of that, furin-cleavge site has not been
observed in any beta coronaviruses in the same lineage so far. Although
similar furin-cleavage sites have been observed in other coronaviruses,
none of them contains the same exact sequence. Therefore, the chance
that the furin-cleavage site in the Wuhan coronavirus was obtained
through recombination with another furin-cleavage-site-containing
coronavirus is very low.

Now, what are chances for both of these next-to-impossible recombination
events to take place? My answer is NO CHANCE. This Wuhan coronavirus
cannot be coming from nature.

Why some literature has to be excluded in the analysis

Someone who has been following the recent literature on this topic would
point out that the above analysis failed to take into account some
crucial evidence. Such evidence, coincidentally, supports a natural
origin of the Wuhan coronavirus. Then how dare I leave it out in my
analysis?

The short answer: that "evidence" was very likely fabricated.

Please allow me to switch my mode now, from a scientist to a detective
or a judge. If we consider this matter as a crime under investigation,
then we have so far one big suspect, Dr. Zhengli Shi from the Wuhan
Institute of Virology and the biosafety level 4 (P4) lab for virology
research. [...]

Second, Zhengli Shi co-authored a paper in Nature Medicine back in 2015
(7), where she collaborated with Ralph Baric at the University of North
Carolina to show that replacing the spike protein of a
non-human-infecting coronavirus with a spike protein capable of binding
human ACE2 led to a novel coronavirus that gained the ability to infect
humans. Now, what is happening in the Wuhan coronavirus essentially
follows the same scheme; the changes, although minimal, are sufficient
to turn the bat coronavirus into a virus that can infect humans. The
only difference is that, when changes are this subtle, tracing the
origin of the virus becomes much difficult.

Third, a 2006 publication showed that inserting a furin-cleavage site in
the junction region of S1 and S2 of spike of the SARS coronavirus led to
much enhanced membrane fusion activity of the virus (8). Although viral
infectivity enhancement was not observed in their study using pseudo
viruses, presence of such furin-cleavage sites is known to be associated
with high pathogenicity in influenza virus infections. Miraculously,
this is precisely what is observed in the Wuhan coronavirus (region
marked by two green lines in Figure 3). Furthermore, influenza viruses
containing such furin-cleavage sites often infect a greater variety of
cells and are therefore more likely to target organs in addition to the
lung. Now you should recall multiple recent reports describing that the
Wuhan coronavirus infects multiple organs, including lung, heart, blood
vein, liver, central nerve system, etc.

Simple and yet clear logic on how this Wuhan coronavirus may be made by
the CCP

If you put the pieces together, you should be able to appreciate how
easily this virus can be created by the CCP. Obviously, the starting
virus template used here, either ZC45 or ZXC21, is owned only by the CCP
(6). What they would do then was to modify things such that this bat
coronavirus, non-infectious to humans, could be converted to a novel
coronavirus that infects humans with high efficiency. They did so by
following two published concepts (7, 8): 1) they converted the crucial
spike protein to something that follows the scheme of the SARS spike
protein so that the virus can target human ACE2; 2) they inserted a
furin-cleavage site in between S1 and S2 of spike, which may make the
virus more pathogenic. These two concepts are the only ones out there to
get such a job done. Yet, miraculously, they are being followed
precisely here. If it were mother nature who has created this virus,
then mother nature must have studied recent scientific literatures very
carefully and followed these key findings faithfully in her work (2, 6-8).

Also, let's go back a little and think why they spend so much time
fetching coronaviruses all over the place. Is it really like what they
claimed – to understand the potentials of coronaviruses and therefore
better predict future emerging coronaviruses? Why didn't they put as
much effort on vaccine research or drug discovery targeting a
function/protein conserved in most coronaviruses then? The latter is not
only more beneficial to the public but also way easier than predicting
emerging viruses.

Another possibility, of course, is that they are collecting these things
to create coronavirus-based bioweapons. What is the truth? You can make
up your own mind.

As of me, I am fully convinced that this is a bioweapon made by the CCP.
[...]

(6) Matthew Ehret ignores Luc Montagnier finding of HIV in Covid-19, but
praises his work on Water Memory

From: chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com>


Big Pharma Beware: Dr. Montagnier Shines New Light on COVID-19 and The
Future of Medicine

Matthew Ehret

April 30, 2020

This April 16th, Dr. Luc Montagnier became a household name around the
world. This occurred as the controversial virologist decided to publicly
state his support for the theory that Covid-19 is indeed a
laboratory-generated creation and not a naturally occurring effect of
viral evolution.

Referring to a study published at the Kusama School of Biology in New
Dehli on January 31st, Montagnier (the 2008 Nobel Prize winner for his
1983 discovery of the HIV virus) made the point that the specific
occurrence of HIV RNA viral segments spliced surgically within the
COVID-19 genome could not have originated naturally and he described it
in the following words:

"We have carefully analyzed the description of the genome of this RNA
virus. We weren't the first, a group of Indian researchers tried to
publish a study showing that the complete genome of this virus that has
within the sequences of another virus: that of HIV."

While the Indian team was induced to retract their publication under
immense pressure from the mainstream medical establishment (which never
bothered to seriously refute the content of the study's research but
rather used the "random-mutation-makes-anything-possible" argument),
Montagnier stated "scientific truth always emerges".

Not China: Montagnier Misdiagnoses the Culprit

Montagnier's political ignorance became all too clear when he was asked
who the culprit could possibly be.

By asserting his belief that China's BSL4 lab in Wuhan was the source,
Montagnier has fallen into a trap set by Anglo-American Intelligence
circles which have been promoting a military confrontation between the
USA and China for a very long time.

Now even though Montagnier denies that China released this virus with
malicious intent (unlike many fanatical droves of neoconservatives
currently itching for war), the "Wuhan Lab origin" hypothesis completely
ignores the reality of the Pentagon's globally extended 25 bioweapons
laboratories which have openly created novel coronaviruses including
varieties that arose in bats as journalist Whitney Webb's remarkable
February 2020 paper demonstrated.

Even though a 2014-2017 temporary ban on "dual-use" funding was imposed
onto America's bioweapons research, nothing prevented this work from
occurring internationally or even covertly within the 11 military labs
on American soil itself and tied to the same Fort Detrick that was shut
down in July 2019 under suspicious circumstances. As I pointed out in my
previous paper The Project for a New American Century, 9/11 and
Bioweapons, over $50 billion has been spent on bioweapons research since
2001 which the Project for a New American Century manifesto claimed
would play a major role in the arsenal of 21st century warfare stating:
"advanced forms of biological warfare that can "target" specific
genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a
politically useful tool".

Luc Montagnier's Wave Therapy: Quackery or Brilliance?

The most powerful aspect of Montagnier's April 16th intervention into
world politics in my view is not really found in his support for the
laboratory-origins theory, but rather in the scientist's often
overlooked proposition for an international crash program in something
called electromagnetic wave therapy. Rather than investing in vaccines,
Montagnier has explained that it were much wiser for nations of the
world to launch a crash project into a very different approach to viral
treatments than is currently common in polite society saying:

"I think we can make interference waves which are behind the RNA
sequences that can eliminate those sequences with waves and consequently
stop the pandemic"

Before brushing this off as "quackery" as so many are wont to do, one
should keep in mind that President Trump himself has indicated his
interest in Montagnier's approach in his April 23rd briefing telling
reporters:

"Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous … whether it's ultraviolet
or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn't been
checked, but you are going to test it… And then I said supposing you
brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the
skin or in some other way. And I think you said you are going to test it."

While Trump has been vilely attacked as "unscientific" for these
utterances, it is only due to the vast ignorance of Montagnier's
incredible discoveries into the electromagnetic properties of life that
such mockery can go unchallenged. [...]

After winning the 2008 Nobel Prize, Dr. Montagnier published a
revolutionary yet heretical 2010 paper called "DNA Waves and Water"
which took the medical community by storm. In this paper, Montagnier
demonstrated how low frequency electromagnetic radiation within the
radio wave part of the spectrum was emitted from bacterial and viral DNA
and how said light was able to both organize water and transmit
information! The results of his experiments were showcased wonderfully
in this 8 min  video:

Using a photo-amplifying device invented by Dr. Jacques Benveniste in
the 1980s to capture the ultra low light emissions from cells,
Montagnier filtered out all particles of bacterial DNA from a tube of
water and discovered that the post-filtered solutions containing no
material particles continued to emit ultra low frequency waves! This
became more fascinating when Montagnier showed that under specific
conditions of a 7 Hz background field (the same as the Schumann
resonance which naturally occurs between the earth's surface and the
ionosphere), the non-emitting tube of water that had never received
organic material could be induced to emit frequencies when placed in
close proximity with the emitting tube! Even more interesting is that
when base proteins, nucleotides and polymers (building blocks of DNA)
were put into the pure water, near perfect clones of the original DNA
were formed!

Dr. Montagnier and his team hypothesized that the only way for this to
happen was if the DNA's blueprint was somehow imprinted into the very
structure of water itself resulting in a form of "water memory" that had
earlier been pioneered by Jacques Benveniste, the results of which are
showcased in this incredible 2014 documentary "Water Memory".

Just as Benveniste suffered one of the most ugly witch hunts in modern
times (led in large measure by Nature Magazine in 1988), Montagnier's
Nobel prize did not protect him from a similar fate as an international
slander campaign has followed him over the past 10 years of his life.
Nearly 40 Nobel prize winners have signed a petition denouncing
Montagnier for his heresy and the great scientist was forced to even
flee Europe to escape what he described as a culture of "intellectual
terror". In response to this slander, Montagnier stated to LaCroix
magazine:  "I'm used to attacks from these academics who are just
retired bureaucrats, closed off from all innovation. I have the
scientific proofs of what I say".

Describing the greatest challenges to advancing this research,
Montagnier stated:

"We have chosen to work with the private sector because no funds could
come from public institutions. The Benveniste case has made it so that
anyone who takes an interest in the memory of water is considered… I
mean it smells of sulphur. It's Hell."

Casting Montagnier's Research in a New Light

In a 2011 interview, Dr. Montagnier recapitulated the consequences of
his discoveries:

"The existence of a harmonic signal emanating from DNA can help to
resolve long-standing questions about cell development, for example how
the embryo is able to make its manifold transformations, as if guided by
an external field. If DNA can communicate its essential information to
water by radio frequency, then non-material structures will exist within
the watery environment of the living organism, some of them hiding
disease signals and others involved in the healthy development of the
organism."

With these insights in mind, Montagnier has discovered that many of the
frequencies of EM emissions from a wide variety of microbial DNA is also
found in the blood plasmas of patients suffering from influenza A,
Hepatitis C, and even many neurological diseases not commonly thought of
as bacteria-influenced such as Parkinsons, Multiple Sclerosis,
Rheumathoid Arthritis and Alzheimers. In recent years, Montagnier's
teams even found certain signals in the blood plasmas of people with
autism and several varieties of cancers!

Over a dozen French doctors have taken Montagnier's ideas seriously
enough to prescribe antibiotics to treat autism over the course of six
years and in opposition to conventional theories, have found that amidst
240 patients treated, 4 out of 5 saw their symptoms either dramatically
regress or disappear completely!

These results imply again that certain hard-to-detect species of light
emitting microbes are closer to the cause of these ills than the modern
pharmaceutical industry would like to admit.

A New Domain of Thinking: Why Big Pharma Should Be Afraid

As the filmed 2014 experiment demonstrated, Montagnier went even further
to demonstrate that the frequencies of wave emissions within a filtrate
located in a French laboratory can be recorded and emailed to another
laboratory in Italy where that same harmonic recording was infused into
tubes of non-emitting water causing the Italian tubes to slowly begin
emitting signals! These DNA frequencies were then able to structure the
Italian water tubes from the parent source a thousand miles away
resulting in a 98% exact DNA replica!

Standing as we are, on the cusp of so many exciting breakthroughs in
medical science, we should ask: what could these results mean for the
multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industrial complex which relies on
keeping the world locked into a practice of chemical drugs and vaccines?

Speaking to this point, Montagnier stated:

"The day that we admit that signals can have tangible effects, we will
use them. From that moment on we will be able to treat patients with
waves. Therefore it's a new domain of medicine that people fear of
course. Especially the pharmaceutical industry… one day we will be able
to treat cancers using frequency waves."

Montagnier's friend and collaborator Marc Henry a professor of Chemistry
and Quantum Mechanics at the University of Strasbourg stated:

"If we treat with frequencies and not with medicines it becomes
extremely cost effective regarding the amount of money spent. We spend a
lot of money to find the frequencies, but once they have been found, it
costs nothing to treat."

Whether produced in a lab as Montagnier asserts or having appeared
naturally as Nature Magazine asserts, the fact remains that the current
coronavirus pandemic has accelerated a collapse of the world financial
system and forced the leaders of the world to discuss the reality of a
needed new paradigm and new world economic order. Whether that new
system will be driven by Pharmaceutical cartels, and sociopathic bankers
running global health policy for a technocratic elite of social
engineers or whether it will be driven by nation states shaping the
terms of that new system around human needs, remains to be seen. [...]

(7) Luc Montagnier's heretical work on 'Water Memory'

Watch the video at


Dr. Luc Montagnier and the Coming Revolutions in Optical Biophysics

By Matthew Ehret

APRIL 29, 2020

(8) Homeopathy journal explores WaterMemory effects


The Memory of Water is a Reality

New issue of Homeopathy journal explores water memory effects

Oxford, UK, 01 August 2007 – A special issue of the journal Homeopathy,
journal of the Faculty of Homeopathy and published by Elsevier, on the
'Memory of Water' brings together scientists from around the world for
the first time to publish new data, reviews and discuss recent
scientific work exploring the idea that water can display memory
effects. The concept of memory of water is important to homeopathy
because it offers a potential explanation of the mechanism of action of
very high dilutions often used in homeopathy.

Guest editor Professor Martin Chaplin of the Department of Applied
Science at London South Bank University, remarks: "There is strong
evidence concerning many ways in which the mechanism of this 'memory'
may come about. There are also mechanisms by which such solutions may
possess effects on biological systems which substantially differ from
plain water."

The concept of the memory of water goes back to 1988 when the late
Professor Jacques Benveniste published, in the international scientific
journal Nature, claims that extremely high 'ultramolecular' dilutions of
an antibody had effects in the human basophil degranulation test, a
laboratory model of immune response. In other words, the water diluent
'remembered' the antibody long after it was gone. His findings were
subsequently denounced as 'pseudoscience' and yet, despite the negative
impact this had at the time, the idea has not gone away.

In this special issue of Homeopathy, scientists from the Czech Republic,
France, Germany, Italy, Russia, USA as well as the UK present remarkably
convergent views from groups using entirely different methods,
indicating that large-scale structural effects can occur in liquid
water, and can increase with time. Such effects might account for claims
of memory of water effects.

Commenting on the special issue, Professor Chaplin said: "Science has a
lot more to discover about such effects and how they might relate to
homeopathy. It is unjustified to dismiss homeopathy, as some scientists
do, just because we don't have a full understanding of how it works." In
his overview he is critical of the 'unscientific rhetoric' of some
scientists who reject the memory of water concept "with a narrow view of
the subject and without any examination or appreciation of the full body
of evidence."

Professor Chaplin and Dr Peter Fisher, editor-in-chief of the journal,
agree that the current evidence brings us a step closer to providing an
explanation for the claims made for homeopathy and that the memory of
water, once considered a scientific heresy, is a reality. "These
discoveries may have far reaching implications and more research is
required," comments Dr Fisher.

(9) Brazil's Gangs impose Lockdown in Favelas, to Fight COVID-19

1178 WIV Database of Viruses was altered on Dec. 30, the day before China notified WHO

WIV Database of Viruses was altered on Dec. 30, the day before China
notified WHO

Newsletter published on May 8, 2020

(1) Several Labs in Wuhan could have been source of Covid-19
(2) Article by Chinese scientists, now removed, lists WIV & WHCDC as
likely sources
(3) WIV Database of Viruses was altered on Dec. 30, the day before China
notified WHO
(4) While Shi Zhengli was on a train from Shanghai to Wuhan, alterations
were made to her database
(5) Shi Zhengli speaks about SARS at TED-like talk in 2018
(6) Shi Zhengli article in Scientific American
(7) Virologist: WE INTRODUCED A FURIN-LIKE CLEAVAGE SEQUENCE in the S
protein
(8) US Patent for Chimeric Coronavirus Spike Proteins lists Ralph Baric
as Inventor
(9) Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function
Research

(1) Several Labs in Wuhan could have been source of Covid-19

by Peter Myers, May 8, 2020

Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), where Shi Zhengli runs the BSL-4 (P4)
lab, is regarded as the leading contender for the origin of Covid-19.

She has told how she could not sleep with worry that her lab might have
been the source, but found that her sample viruses did not match Covid-19.

She has had extensive involvement with US researchers including Raplh
Baric, and is presumably good friends with them. No doubt they have
vouched for her. However, she is not in control of WIV.

Her P4 lab would not be the only lab at WIV. What are the others? Did
any of them have access to her samples?

Where does China's military fit, in all of this? Does it have labs akin
to Fort Detrick? Given that Wuhan is China's research centre on viruses,
could the military have a lab at WIV or nearby?

There's also Wuhan University of Technology (WUT), which bribed Charles
Lieber of Harvard to transfer nanotechnology.

And Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention (WHCDC), which has a
virology lab about 280 meters from the wet market which was thought to
be the source of Covid-19.

See item 2, and map of Wuhan showing WIV, WCDC, & Huanan Seafood Market:

(2) Article by Chinese scientists, now removed, lists WIV & WHCDC as
likely sources

ORIGINAL AT


The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus

Preprint - February 2020

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.21799.29601

2 authors, including:

Botao Xiao

South China University of Technology

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these
related projects: project National Natural Science Foundation of China
(11372116)

All content following this page was uploaded by Botao Xiao on 06
February 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

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 1,2. 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 Market 3. 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 4-6. 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 tick 8.

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
1,9,10. 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 pandemic 9.

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.
ps://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5.

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):
e1003159.

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.

map of Wuhan showing WIV, WCDC, & Huanan Seafood Market:

(3) WIV Database of Viruses was altered on Dec. 30, day before China
notified WHO


Database Of Wuhan's 'Batwoman' Altered 48 Hours Before COVID-19 Samples
Ordered Destroyed

by Tyler Durden

Thu, 05/07/2020 - 12:03

As Western intelligence continues to investigate China's handling of
COVID-19 as it spread throughout Hubei province in December, disturbing
evidence continues to emerge that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
engaged in a massive cover-up of what was going on.

Now, we've learned that the Wuhan Institute of Virology - which was
conducting controversial experiments into animal-to-human transmission
of bat coronaviruses, altered their database in an apparent attempt to
distance the lab from the outbreak.

"Days before the Wuhan wet market was bleached, whistleblowers were
punished and virus samples were destroyed, someone at the high-security
Wuhan Institute of Virology censored its virus database in an apparent
attempt to disassociate the laboratory from a novel-coronavirus outbreak
that would become a global pandemic," reports the New York Post's
Miranda Devine, citing a UK intelligence analyst who found the
alterations via open-source methods.

Notably, the alteration occurred two days before a gene sequencing lab
was reportedly ordered by the Health and Medical Commission of Hubei
Province to destroy samples of the new disease and withhold information.

According to the report, the alterations - conducted on the evening of
Dec. 30 - were substantial, and occurred the day before the CCP notified
the World Health Organization about the outbreak of a cluster of
pneumonia cases in Wuhan.

The primary database contact is none other than Shi Zhengli - now known
as "batwoman" for her controversial experiments, including the creation
of a 'chimeric' coronavirus that can infect humans. According to the
report, Zhengli was in Shanghai for a conference when she was summoned
back to Wuhan to deal with the outbreak which had been detected in two
pneumonia patients. While on the overnight train back to Wuhan, the
database was altered.

Most of the changes were to delete the keywords "wildlife" or "wild
animals." This is significant, because global health researchers say the
virus jumped from bats to humans via another wild animal — the crucial
"missing link" in the COVID-19 transmission chain.

Shi used to boast that her bat-virus database was unique because it
included data on virus variants in other wild animals.

Was her database censored to keep prying eyes away from references to
cross-species transmission of viruses in wild animals?

For instance, the title of the -database was changed that night from
"Wildlife-borne viral pathogen database" to "Bat and rodent-borne viral
pathogen database."

"Wild animal" was replaced with "bat and rodent" or "bat and rat" at
least 10 times in the database. Also, a reference to "arthropod vectors"
was removed.

Keywords that might facilitate searches potentially connecting the
database with the outbreak also were deleted. "Wild animal samples,"
"viral pathogen data," "emerging infectious diseases" and "cross-species
infection" were keywords associated with the original version.

On Dec. 30 they were replaced with "bat," "rodent" and "virus." -New
York Post

(4) While Shi Zhengli was on a train from Shanghai to Wuhan, alterations
were made to her database


What is China covering up about the coronavirus?: Devine

By Miranda Devine

May 6, 2020 | 10:17pm

Days before the Wuhan wet market was bleached, whistleblowers were
punished and virus samples were destroyed, someone at the high-security
Wuhan Institute of Virology censored its virus database in an apparent
attempt to disassociate the laboratory from a novel-coronavirus outbreak
that would become a global pandemic.

This is what open-source intelligence uncovered in the United Kingdom
reveals.

Substantial alterations to the WIV database on the evening of Dec. 30,
the day before the World Health Organization was alerted to the outbreak
of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, are just another indication
that the Chinese Communist Party is hiding something when it comes to
the origins of COVID-19.

The question of whether the virus came from the Wuhan wet market, as
China insists, or leaked from the nearby WIV laboratory, where high-risk
research into animal-to-human transmission of bat coronaviruses was
being conducted, is at the center of allegations of a coverup and a
worldwide clamor for an independent investigation into the source of the
disease.

Shi Zhengli, the virologist known as China's "batwoman" for her work
with bat coronaviruses, directs the WIV's Center for Emerging Infectious
Diseases and is listed as the primary database contact.

On Dec. 30, she was in Shanghai for a conference when she was summoned
back to Wuhan with the news that a novel coronavirus had been detected
in two pneumonia patients.

On the overnight train from Shanghai, according to a March article in
Scientific American, she was stricken with worry about the coronaviruses.

"Could they have come from our lab?" she wondered. see also China's
‘Batwoman' still studies animal-borne coronavirus amid claims lab was in
on cover-up

After all, the closest known relative of this new coronavirus, a bat
virus named RaTG13, was in her lab.

Weeks later, she would post a message on WeChat saying, "I swear with my
life, [the virus] has nothing to do with the lab."

But at some point while she was on that train ride to Wuhan, alterations
were made to her database, which contained records of bat -viruses
transmitted to other wild animals.

Most of the changes were to delete the keywords "wildlife" or "wild
animals." This is significant, because global health researchers say the
virus jumped from bats to humans via another wild animal — the crucial
"missing link" in the COVID-19 transmission chain.

Shi used to boast that her bat-virus database was unique because it
included data on virus variants in other wild animals.

Was her database censored to keep prying eyes away from references to
cross-species transmission of viruses in wild animals?

For instance, the title of the -database was changed that night from
"Wildlife-borne viral pathogen database" to "Bat and rodent-borne viral
pathogen database."

"Wild animal" was replaced with "bat and rodent" or "bat and rat" at
least 10 times in the database. Also, a reference to "arthropod vectors"
was removed.

Keywords that might facilitate searches potentially connecting the
database with the outbreak also were deleted. "Wild animal samples,"
"viral pathogen data," "emerging infectious diseases" and "cross-species
infection" were keywords associated with the original version.

On Dec. 30 they were replaced with "bat," "rodent" and "virus."

"It looks like a rushed, inconsistent effort to disassociate the project
from the outbreak by -rebranding it," says the British open-source
intelligence analyst who found the alterations.

"It's a strange thing to do within hours of being informed of a
novel-coronavirus outbreak."

He surmises: "If the WIV had found the missing link between bat virus
RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 [the coronavirus that causes COVID-19] from an
animal vector, it would have been in Shi's database." see also
Ambassador's Orwellian op-ed asks US to stop blaming China for COVID-19

There's no conclusive evidence that any of the changes were made for
sinister reasons.

But China's lies and furtive -actions since the outbreak lead us to
believe the worst.

"This is an enormous crisis created by the fact that the Chinese
Communist Party reverted to form, reverted to the kinds of
disinformation, the kinds of concealment, that authoritarian regimes
do," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview Sunday with ABC
News.

"There is enormous evidence that [the Wuhan lab] is where this began . . .

"These are not the first times that we've had a world exposed to viruses
as a result of failures in a Chinese lab."

On Wednesday, Pompeo walked back his comments slightly at a press
conference. "We don't have certainty," he said. "We're all trying to get
to clarity."

China's refusal to allow an investigation of the origins of the Wuhan
virus, or even to share original virus samples, impedes the search for
treatments and a vaccine. As if that weren't bad enough, now it is
threatening economic boycotts against countries like Australia that want
an investigation.

"The CCP organizational and governmental culture is to cover up and
ruthlessly control," says a retired senior Australian intelligence
officer who served in China.

"The arrest of frontline health professionals in January was standard
practice."

We don't know why the changes were made to the WIV database.

What we do know is they were made the same day a young ophthal-mologist,
Dr. Li Wenliang, warned colleagues in an online chat group about a
"SARS-like coronavirus" among patients in the emergency department of a
Wuhan Hospital.

Li was arrested two days later, along with seven other doctors, for
"spreading rumors" and forced to recant. He died a month later, of the
coronavirus, at age 33.

(5) Shi Zhengli speaks about SARS at TED-like talk in 2018


(6) Shi Zhengli article in Scientific American


How China's ‘Bat Woman' Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New
Coronavirus

Wuhan-based virologist Shi Zhengli has identified dozens of deadly
SARS-like viruses in bat caves, and she warns there are more out there

By Jane Qiu on April 27, 2020

Scientific American

Editor's Note (4/24/20): This article was originally published online on
March 11. It has been updated for inclusion in the June 2020 issue of
Scientific American and to address rumors that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from
Shi Zhengli's lab in China.

In 2004 Shi Zhengli found a natural reservoir of coronaviruses in bat
caves in southern China. Genetic analyses show they have leaped to
people several times, causing deadly diseases such as COVID-19.
Increasing contact between people and wild animals makes more outbreaks
likely.

The mysterious patient samples arrived at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology at 7 P.M. on December 30, 2019. Moments later Shi Zhengli's
cell phone rang. It was her boss, the institute's director. The Wuhan
Center for Disease Control and Prevention had detected a novel
coronavirus in two hospital patients with atypical pneumonia, and it
wanted Shi's renowned laboratory to investigate. If the finding was
confirmed, the new pathogen could pose a serious public health
threat—because it belonged to the same family of viruses as the one that
caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a disease that plagued
8,100 people and killed nearly 800 of them between 2002 and 2003. "Drop
whatever you are doing and deal with it now," she recalls the director
saying.

Shi, a virologist who is often called China's "bat woman" by her
colleagues because of her virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves over
the past 16 years, walked out of the conference she was attending in
Shanghai and hopped on the next train back to Wuhan. "I wondered if [the
municipal health authority] got it wrong," she says. "I had never
expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China." Her
studies had shown that the southern, subtropical provinces of Guangdong,
Guangxi and Yunnan have the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping to
humans from animals—particularly bats, a known reservoir. If
coronaviruses were the culprit, she remembers thinking, "Could they have
come from our lab?"

While Shi's team at the Wuhan institute, an affiliate of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences, raced to uncover the identity of the contagion—over
the following week they connected the illness to the novel coronavirus
that become known as SARS-CoV-2—the disease spread like wildfire. By
April 20 more than 84,000 people in China had been infected. About 80
percent of them lived in the province of Hubei, of which Wuhan is the
capital, and more than 4,600 had died. Outside of China, about 2.4
million people across 210 or so countries and territories  had caught
the virus, and more than 169,000 had perished from the disease it
caused, COVID-19.

Scientists have long warned that the rate of emergence of new infectious
diseases is accelerating—especially in developing countries where high
densities of people and animals increasingly mingle and move about.
"It's incredibly important to pinpoint the source of infection and the
chain of cross-species transmission," says disease ecologist Peter
Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York City–based nonprofit
research organization that collaborates with researchers, such as Shi,
in 30 countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to discover new
viruses in wildlife. An equally important task, he adds, is to hunt down
other pathogens to "prevent similar incidents from happening again."

THE CAVES

To Shi, her first virus-discovery expedition felt like a vacation. On a
breezy, sunny spring day in 2004, she joined an international team of
researchers to collect samples from bat colonies in caves near Nanning,
the capital of Guangxi. Her inaugural cave was typical of the region:
large, rich in limestone columns and—as a popular tourist
destination—easily accessible. "It was spellbinding," Shi recalls.
Milky-white stalactites hung from the ceiling like icicles, glistening
with moisture.

But the holidaylike atmosphere soon dissipated. Many bats—including
several insect-eating species of horseshoe bats that are abundant in
southern Asia—roost in deep, narrow caves on steep terrain. Often guided
by tips from local villagers, Shi and her colleagues had to hike for
hours to potential sites and inch through tight rock crevasses on their
stomachs. And the flying mammals can be elusive. In one frustrating
week, the team explored more than 30 caves and saw only a dozen bats.

These expeditions were part of the effort to catch the culprit in the
SARS outbreak, the first major epidemic of the 21st century. A Hong Kong
team had reported that wildlife traders in Guangdong first caught the
SARS coronavirus from civets, mongooselike mammals that are native to
tropical and subtropical Asia and Africa.

Before SARS, the world had only an inkling of coronaviruses—so named
because their spiky surface resembles a crown when seen under a
microscope, says Linfa Wang, who directs the emerging infectious
diseases program at Singapore's Duke-NUS Medical School. Coronaviruses
were mostly known for causing common colds. "The SARS outbreak was a
game changer," Wang says. It was the first emergence of a deadly
coronavirus with pandemic potential. The incident helped to jump-start a
global search for animal viruses that could find their way into humans.
Shi was an early recruit of that effort, and both Daszak and Wang have
been her long-term collaborators.

ON THE SAME 2004 trip, a group of researchers prepare bat blood samples
that they will screen for viruses and other pathogens. Credit: Shuyi
Zhang With the SARS virus, just how the civets got it remained a
mystery. Two previous incidents were telling: Australia's 1994 Hendra
virus infections, in which the contagion jumped from horses to humans,
and Malaysia's 1998 Nipah virus outbreak, in which it moved from pigs to
people. Wang found that both diseases were caused by pathogens that
originated in fruit-eating bats. Horses and pigs were merely the
intermediate hosts. Bats in the Guangdong market also contained traces
of the SARS virus, but many scientists dismissed this as contamination.
Wang, however, thought bats might be the source.

In those first virus-hunting months in 2004, whenever Shi's team located
a bat cave, it would put a net at the opening before dusk and then wait
for the nocturnal creatures to venture out to feed for the night. Once
the bats were trapped, the researchers took blood and saliva samples, as
well as fecal swabs, often working into the small hours. After catching
up on some sleep, they would return to the cave in the morning to
collect urine and fecal pellets.

But sample after sample turned up no trace of genetic material from
coronaviruses. It was a heavy blow. "Eight months of hard work seemed to
have gone down the drain," Shi says. "We thought maybe bats had nothing
to do with SARS." The scientists were about to give up when a research
group in a neighboring lab handed them a diagnostic kit for testing
antibodies produced by people with SARS.

There was no guarantee that the test would work for bat antibodies, but
Shi gave it a go anyway. "What did we have to lose?" she says. The
results exceeded her expectations. Samples from three horseshoe bat
species contained antibodies to the SARS virus. "It was a turning point
for the project," Shi says. The researchers learned that the presence of
the coronavirus in bats was ephemeral and seasonal—but an antibody
reaction could last from weeks to years. The diagnostic kit, therefore,
offered a valuable pointer as to how to hunt down viral genomic sequences.

Shi's team used the antibody test to narrow down the list of locations
and bat species to pursue in the quest for genomic clues. After roaming
mountainous terrain in most of China's dozens of provinces, the
researchers turned their attention to one spot: Shitou Cave, on the
outskirts of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, where they conducted
intense sampling during different seasons over five consecutive years.

The efforts paid off. The pathogen hunters discovered hundreds of
bat-borne coronaviruses with incredible genetic diversity. "The majority
of them are harmless," Shi says. But dozens belong to the same group as
SARS. They can infect human lung cells in a petri dish and cause
SARS-like diseases in mice.

In Shitou Cave—where painstaking scrutiny has yielded a natural genetic
library of bat-borne viruses—the team discovered a coronavirus strain
that came from horseshoe bats with a genomic sequence nearly 97 percent
identical to the one found in civets in Guangdong. The finding concluded
a decade-long search for the natural reservoir of the SARS coronavirus.

A DANGEROUS MIX In many bat dwellings Shi has sampled, including Shitou
Cave, "constant mixing of different viruses creates a great opportunity
for dangerous new pathogens to emerge," says Ralph Baric, a virologist
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the vicinity of
such viral melting pots, Shi says, "you don't need to be a wildlife
trader to be infected."

Near Shitou Cave, for example, many villages sprawl among the lush
hillsides in a region known for its roses, oranges, walnuts and hawthorn
berries. In October 2015 Shi's team collected blood samples from more
than 200 residents in four of those villages. It found that six people,
or nearly 3 percent, carried antibodies against SARS-like coronaviruses
from bats—even though none of them had handled wildlife or reported
SARS-like or other pneumonialike symptoms. Only one had traveled outside
of Yunnan prior to the sampling, and all said they had seen bats flying
in their village.

Three years earlier Shi's team had been called in to investigate the
virus profile of a mine shaft in Yunnan's mountainous Mojiang
County—famous for its fermented Pu'er tea—where six miners suffered from
pneumonialike diseases and two died. After sampling the cave for a year,
the researchers discovered a diverse group of coronaviruses in six bat
species. In many cases, multiple viral strains had infected a single
animal, turning it into a flying factory for new viruses.

"The mine shaft stunk like hell," says Shi, who, like her colleagues,
went in wearing a protective mask and clothing. "Bat guano, covered in
fungus, littered the cave." Although the fungus turned out to be the
pathogen that had sickened the miners, she says it would have been only
a matter of time before they caught the coronaviruses if the mine had
not been promptly shut.

With growing human populations increasingly encroaching on wildlife
habitats, with unprecedented changes in land use, with wildlife and
livestock transported across countries and their products around the
world, and with sharp increases in both domestic and international
travel, pandemics of new diseases are a mathematical near certainty.
This had been keeping Shi and many other researchers awake at night long
before the mysterious samples landed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology
on that ominous evening last December.

More than a year ago Shi's team published two comprehensive reviews
about coronaviruses in Viruses and Nature Reviews Microbiology. Drawing
evidence from her own studies—many of which were published in top
academic journals—and from others, Shi and her co-authors warned of the
risk of future outbreaks of bat-borne coronaviruses.

NIGHTMARE SCENARIO

On the train back to Wuhan on December 30 last year, Shi and her
colleagues discussed ways to immediately start testing the patients'
samples. In the following weeks—the most intense and the most stressful
time of her life—China's bat woman felt she was fighting a battle in her
worst nightmare, even though it was one she had been preparing for over
the past 16 years. Using a technique called polymerase chain reaction,
which can detect a virus by amplifying its genetic material, the team
found that samples from five of seven patients had genetic sequences
present in all coronaviruses.

Shi instructed her group to repeat the tests and, at the same time, sent
the samples to another facility to sequence the full viral genomes.
Meanwhile she frantically went through her own lab's records from the
past few years to check for any mishandling of experimental materials,
especially during disposal. Shi breathed a sigh of relief when the
results came back: none of the sequences matched those of the viruses
her team had sampled from bat caves. "That really took a load off my
mind," she says. "I had not slept a wink for days."

By January 7 the Wuhan team had determined that the new virus had indeed
caused the disease those patients suffered—a conclusion based on results
from analyses using polymerase chain reaction, full genome sequencing,
antibody tests of blood samples and the virus's ability to infect human
lung cells in a petri dish. The genomic sequence of the virus,
eventually named SARS-CoV-2, was 96 percent identical to that of a
coronavirus the researchers had identified in horseshoe bats in Yunnan.
Their results appeared in a paper published online on February 3 in
Nature. "It's crystal clear that bats, once again, are the natural
reservoir," says Daszak, who was not involved in the study.

Since then, researchers have published more than 4,500 genomic sequences
of the virus, showing that samples around the world appear to "share a
common ancestor," Baric says. The data also point to a single
introduction into humans followed by sustained human-to-human
transmission, researchers say.

Given that the virus seems fairly stable initially and that many
infected individuals appear to have mild symptoms, scientists suspect
that the pathogen might have been around for weeks or even months before
severe cases raised the alarm. "There might have been mini outbreaks,
but the viruses either burned out or maintained low-level transmission
before causing havoc," Baric says. Most animal-borne viruses reemerge
periodically, he adds, so "the Wuhan outbreak is by no means incidental."

MARKET FORCES To many, the region's burgeoning wildlife markets—which
sell a wide range of animals such as bats, civets, pangolins, badgers
and crocodiles—are perfect viral melting pots. Although humans could
have caught the deadly virus from bats directly (according to several
studies, including those by Shi and her colleagues), independent teams
have suggested that pangolins may have been an intermediate host. These
teams have reportedly uncovered SARS-CoV-2-like coronaviruses in
pangolins that were seized in antismuggling operations in southern China.

On February 24 China announced a permanent ban on wildlife consumption
and trade except for research, medicinal or display purposes—which will
stamp out an industry worth $76 billion and put approximately 14 million
people out of jobs, according to a 2017 report commissioned by the
Chinese Academy of Engineering. Some welcome the initiative, whereas
others, such as Daszak, worry that without efforts to change people's
traditional beliefs or to provide alternative livelihoods, a blanket ban
may simply push the business underground. This could make disease
detection even more challenging. "Eating wildlife has been part of the
cultural tradition" in China for thousands of years, Daszak says. "It
won't change overnight."

In any case, Shi says, "wildlife trade and consumption are only part of
problem." In late 2016 pigs across four farms in Qingyuan County in
Guangdong—60 miles from the site where the SARS outbreak
originated—suffered from acute vomiting and diarrhea, and nearly 25,000
of the animals died. Local veterinarians could not detect any known
pathogen and called Shi for help. The cause of the illness—swine acute
diarrhea syndrome (SADS)—turned out to be a virus whose genomic sequence
was 98 percent identical to that of a coronavirus found in horseshoe
bats in a nearby cave.

"This is a serious cause for concern," says Gregory Gray, an infectious
disease epidemiologist at Duke University. Pigs and humans have very
similar immune systems, making it easy for viruses to cross between the
two species. Moreover, a team at Zhejiang University in the Chinese city
of Hangzhou found that the SADS virus could infect cells from many
organisms in a petri dish, including rodents, chickens, nonhuman
primates and humans. Given the scale of swine farming in many countries,
such as China and the U.S., Gray says, looking for novel coronaviruses
in pigs should be a top priority.

The current outbreak follows several others during the past three
decades that have been caused by six different bat-borne viruses:
Hendra, Nipah, Marburg, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory
syndrome) and Ebola. But "the animals [themselves] are not the problem,"
Wang says. In fact, bats promote biodiversity and ecosystem health by
eating insects and pollinating plants. "The problem arises when we get
in contact with them," he says.

TOWARD PREVENTION When I spoke to Shi in late February—two months into
the epidemic and one month after the government imposed severe movement
restrictions in Wuhan, a megacity of 11 million—she said, laughing, that
life felt almost normal. "Maybe we are getting used to it. The worst
days are certainly over." The institute staffers had a special pass to
travel from home to their lab, but they could not go anywhere else. They
had to subsist on instant noodles during their long hours at work
because the institute's canteen was closed.

New revelations about the coronavirus kept coming to light. The
researchers discovered, for instance, that the pathogen enters human
lung cells by using a receptor called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2,
and they and other groups have since been screening for drugs that can
block it. Scientists are also rac-ing to develop vaccines. In the long
run, the Wuhan team plans to develop broad-spectrum vaccines and drugs
against coronaviruses deemed risky to humans. "The Wuhan outbreak is a
wake-up call," Shi says.

Many scientists say the world should move beyond merely responding to
deadly pathogens when they arise. "The best way forward is prevention,"
Daszak says. Because 70 percent of emerging infectious diseases of
animal origins come from wildlife, a top priority should be identifying
them and developing better diagnostic tests, he adds. Doing so would
essentially mean continuing on a much larger scale what researchers such
as Daszak and Shi had been doing before their funding ended this year.

Such efforts should focus on high-risk viral groups in mammals prone to
coronavirus infections, such as bats, rodents, badgers, civets,
pangolins and nonhuman primates, Daszak says. He adds that developing
countries in the tropics, where wildlife diversity is greatest, should
be the front line of this battle against viruses.

Daszak and his colleagues have analyzed approximately 500 human
infectious diseases from the past century. They found that the emergence
of new pathogens tends to happen in places where a dense population has
been changing the landscape—by building roads and mines, cutting down
forests and intensifying agriculture. "China is not the only hotspot,"
he says, noting that other major emerging economies, such as India,
Nigeria and Brazil, are also at great risk.

Once potential pathogens are mapped out, scientists and public health
officials can regularly check for possible infections by analyzing blood
and swab samples from livestock, from wild animals that are farmed and
traded, and from high-risk human populations such as farmers, miners,
villagers who live near bats, and people who hunt or handle wildlife,
Gray says. This approach, known as "One Health," aims to integrate the
health management of wildlife, livestock and people. "Only then can we
catch an outbreak before it turns into an epidemic," he says, adding
that the strategy could potentially save the hundreds of billions of
dollars such an epidemic can cost.

Back in Wuhan, where the lockdown was finally lifted on April 8, China's
bat woman is not in a celebratory mood. She is distressed because
stories from the Internet and major media have repeated a tenuous
suggestion that SARS-CoV-2 accidentally leaked from her lab—despite the
fact that its genetic sequence does not match any her lab had previously
studied. Other scientists are quick to dismiss the allegation. "Shi
leads a world-class lab of the highest standards," Daszak says.

Despite the disturbance, Shi is determined to continue her work. "The
mission must go on," she says. "What we have uncovered is just the tip
of an iceberg." She is planning to lead a national project to
systematically sample viruses in bat caves, with much wider scope and
intensity than previous attempts. Daszak's team has estimated that there
are more than 5,000 coronavirus strains waiting to be discovered in bats
globally.

"Bat-borne coronaviruses will cause more outbreaks," Shi says with a
tone of brooding certainty. "We must find them before they find us."

Jane Qiu is an award-winning science writer based in Beijing.

(7) Virologist: WE INTRODUCED A FURIN-LIKE CLEAVAGE SEQUENCE in the S
protein


Following the discussion about coronavirus origin:

With respect to "PRRA" novel sequence. It is not really an "insert" or
frame mutation (this would require a no coincident broad sequence
between coincidents sequences.)

It is a point mutation where only few nucleotides are swapped or changed.

That means if it were an "insert" mutation hardly could be becuse of
natural evolution but, however, point mutation doesn't discard natural
evolution.

Now, following with the same discussion in the same youtube channel:

Two new arguments leading to man-made origin or at least to cast doubts
about natural origin.
Both concern mutations genoma.

The first one is when comparing a graphic of the named "cumulative
behavior codon by codon " of CoV-19 and the most alike RaTG13
coronaviruses sequence mutations, happens that the named "synonimous
mutations" (mutations without "relevant" outcome") are taken place along
the whole strain legnth in a "let's say" quite linear mode. However the
named "non synonymous mutations" (more important) suddenly from before
one half (codon 500 until 1250 final codon) of the total strain length
do  not take place anymore.  Comparing this behavior with the natural
evolution and mutations of other coronaviruses results very odd beacuse
usually both type of mutations have a parallel evolution.

The second one, is relative to the aminoacids sequence alignment of the
E structural protein of CoV-19. It happens that the early copies (Feb.
2020) of Wuhan coronavirus share 100% identity of this E protein with
the RaTG13 and relative known coronaviruses. But the recent copies
(April 2020) shows mutations in the aminoacids chain in four different
locations. From the time point of view it is not easy to understand how
this 100% identity has remained during long time (in nature?) without
any mutation and suddenly in few weeks when the virus is in humans
starts evolving rapidly. It sounds like this Wuhan CoV19 were a
"template" made from older coronaviruses and when coming to the natural
world has evolved.

More about scientific discussion:

The Virology Blog is a blog where participants have good knowledge of
the matter and make interesting comments.


In this blog, one participant comments, about possibility of virus
engineering theory:

"...By substitution of a single amino acid in the S protein WE CREATED A
RECOMBINANT PEDV (PEDV-S(FCS)) WITH AN ARTIFICIAL FURIN PROTEASE
CLEAVAGE SITE N-terminal of the putative fusion peptide. PEDV-S(FCS)
exhibited trypsin-independent cell-cell fusion and was able to replicate
in culture cells independent of trypsin... In capital letters
highlighting "the creation of an artificial furin protease cleavage
site" extracted from article published in:
(2015)

The same participant also comments about possibility of virus
enginneering theory: "...To explore this possibility, WE INTRODUCED A
FURIN-LIKE CLEAVAGE SEQUENCE in the S protein at amino acids 798 to 801
and found that the mutated S protein was cleaved and induced cell fusion
without trypsin treatment when expressed on the cell surface..."
Highlighting in capital letters the mutation of a S protein. (Extracted

In this same blog another participant comments about the possibility of
engineering fragments of viruses: In this work a possible procedure to
generate chimeric viruses is described: Manipulation of the Coronavirus
Genome Using Targeted RNA Recombination with Interspecies Chimeric
Coronaviruses Cornelis A.M. de Haan, Bert Jan Haijema, Paul S. Masters,
and Peter J.M. Rottier

This participant later make some questions: I have now a question: why
the famous RaTG13 sequence, from a sample collected in 2013 was
submitted to NCBI only on 27-JAN-2020, after the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2?
and Sure that all the sequences obtained from bat or other animal
screening have been deposited? Why RaTG13, isolated in 2013, has been
made public only in 2020?

Those questions are very similar to one made by Dr Sean Lin in
strange that one sample discovered in 2013 suddenly appears to be the
most similar to SARS_CoV-2 but during this years there has been not
paper mentioning works with these samples.

This question is more and more often asked about, because it is not
usual that after collecting important samples in 2013 no further work
has been published.

Finally again about the feasibility of making engineered viruses

Extracted from article:

"William McEwan: This afternoon I received in the post a slim FedEx
envelope containing four small vials of DNA. The DNA had been
synthesized according to my instructions in under three weeks, at a cost
of 39 U.S. cents per base pair (the rungs adenine-thymine or
guanine-cytosine in the DNA ladder). The 10 micrograms I ordered are
dried, flaky, and barely visible to the naked eye, yet once I have
restored them in water and made an RNA copy of this template, THEY WILL
ENCODE A VIRUS I HAVE DESIGNED. …

Willian McEwan is a postdoc researcher in Cambridge University (UK)

(8) US Patent for Chimeric Coronavirus Spike Proteins lists Ralph Baric
as Inventor


Another interesting information:
Title: Methods and compositions for chimeric coronavirus spike proteins
United States Patent 9884895
Inventors: Baric, Ralph (Haw River, NC, US) Agnihothram, Sudhakar
(Ellicott City, MD, US) Yount, Boyd (Hillsborough, NC, US)
Publication Date: 02/06/2018
Assignee: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill,
NC, US)

(9) Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function
Research

Yuri Deigin

Apr 23


Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research

How I Learned to Start Worrying

Oh, come on. Lab-made? Nonsense! Back in January, that was my knee-jerk
reaction when ideas that Covid-19 is caused by a laboratory leak had
just surfaced. Bioweapon? Well, that is just Flat Earth crazies
territory. Thus, whenever I kept hearing anything about non-natural
origins of SARS-CoV-2, I brushed it aside under similar sentiments. So
what if there is a virology institute in Wuhan? Who knows how many of
those are sprinkled throughout China.

At some point, it became necessary to brush such theories aside in a
substantiated manner, as their proponents began to back up their theses
about the possible arti cial nature of the virus with arguments from
molecular biology, and when engaging them in debate, I wanted to smash
their conspiracy theories with cold, hard scienti c facts. Just like
that Nature paper (or so I thought).

So it was then, in pursuit of arguments against the virus’s
lab-madeness, that I got infected by the virus of doubt. What was the
source of my doubts? The fact that the deeper you dive into the research
activities of coronavirologists over the past 15–20 years, the more you
realize that creating chimeras like CoV2 was commonplace in their labs.
And CoV2 is an obvious chimera (though not nesessarily a lab-made one),
which is based on the ancestral bat strain RaTG13, in which the receptor
binding motif (RBM) in its spike protein is replaced by the RBM from a
pangolin strain, and in addition, a small but very special stretch of 4
amino acids is inserted, which creates a furin cleavage site that, as
virologists have previously established, signicantly expands the
"repertoire" of the virus in terms of whose cells it can penetrate. Most
likely, it was thanks to this new furin site that the new mutant managed
to jump species from its original host to humans.

Indeed, virologists, including the leader of coronavirus research at the
Wuhan Institute of Virology, Shi Zhengli, have done many similar things
in the past — both replacing the RBM in one type of virus by an RBM from
another, or adding a new furin site that can provide a species-specic
coronavirus with an ability to start using the same receptor (e.g. ACE2)
in other species. In fact, Shi Zhengli’s group was creating chimeric
constructs as far back as 2007 and as recently as 2017, when they
created a whole of 8 new chimeric coronaviruses with various RBMs. In
2019 such work was in full swing, as WIV was part of a $3.7 million NIH
grant titled Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence. Under
its auspices, Shi Zhengli co-authored a 2019 paper that called for
continued research into synthetic viruses and testing them in vitro and
in vivo:

Currently, no clinical treatments or prevention strategies are available
for any human coronavirus. Given the conserved RBDs of SARS-CoV and bat
SARSr-CoVs, some anti-SARS-CoV strategies in development, such as
anti-RBD antibodies or RBD-based vaccines, should be tested against bat
SARSr-CoVs. Recent studies demonstrated that anti-SARS-CoV strategies
worked against only WIV1 and not SHC014. In addition, little information
is available on HKU3-related strains that have much wider geographical
distribution and bear truncations in their RBD. Similarly, anti-S
antibodies against MERS-CoV could not protect from infection with a
pseudovirus bearing the bat MERSr-CoV S. Furthermore, little is known
about the replication and pathogenesis of these bat viruses. Thus,
future work should be focused on the biological properties of these
viruses using virus isolation, reverse genetics and in vitro and in vivo
infection assays. The resulting data would help the prevention and
control of emerging SARS-like or MERS-like diseases in the future.

If the above quote might seem vague as to what exactly "using reverse
genetics" might mean, the NIH grant itself spells it out:

Aim 3. In vitro and in vivo characterization of SARSr-CoV spillover
risk, coupled with spatial and phylogenetic analyses to identify the
regions and viruses of public health concern. 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.

"Infectious clone technology" stands for creating live synthetic viral
clones. Considering the heights of user friendliness and automation that
genetic engineering tools have attained, creating a synthetic CoV2 via
the above methodology would be in reach of even a grad student. [...]