Discussion: Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Wuhan has been working with bats and coronavirus for many years - DNA manipulations, cloning....

[Emily]

http://www.china.org.cn/world/2020-0...t_76302432.htm

China refutes US claim of coronavirus originating in Wuhan lab
Xinhua, July 23, 2020

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday refuted the claim by some U.S. politicians that the novel coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan.
Spokesperson Wang Wenbin made the remarks at a daily press briefing when asked for comments about the so-called latest evidence of the origin of the virus as recently revealed by an internal cable of the U.S. State Department...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...953_story.html

State Department releases cable that launched claims that coronavirus escaped from Chinese lab
By John Hudson and Nate Jones
July 17, 2020 at 4:01 p.m. PDT
...
The cable is marked “SBU,” for sensitive but unclassified...

https://www.salon.com/2020/07/22/gop...an-they-solve/

Igor Derysh

July 22, 2020 6:12PM (UTC)
...
Bolduc [Retired Army Brig. General Don Bolduc] has also echoed Trump's baseless conspiracy theory that the coronavirus may have been engineered in a lab in Wuhan, China.

"They (China) started this **** and they weren't transparent about it," Bolduc said in a March interview. "And they probably created it in a lab. And now we're stuck with it. And the whole world is stuck with it."

He later doubled down in an interview with local news outlet WMUR, arguing that the virus was "probably a biological program they put together and it got beyond their ability to contain" and that it was designed to have a "a fatal effect on our older generation."...

His earlier interview:

https://www.wmur.com/article/nh-prim...ment/31766579#

NH Primary Source: Bolduc backs theory that COVID-19 began as Chinese biological experiment
Updated: 4:19 AM EDT Mar 19, 2020

John DiStaso

...Bolduc, a 33-year U.S. Army veteran and retired Brigadier General, made the comment to reporters during a conference call in which he said he is qualified to deal with the coronavirus outbreak based on his experience dealing with the Ebola outbreak in 2014, when he led the U.S. Special Operations Command in Africa.

“China created this worldwide epidemic,” Bolduc said.

Bolduc said he agreed with the view Cotton, who has endorsed Bolduc, expressed about a month ago that the outbreak was, Bolduc said, “probably a biological program they put together and it got beyond their ability to contain.”

He said it was probably an attempt at population control, which, he said, could be “weaponized during a conflict.”

“The virus was designed to get the younger generation sick and designed to have a fatal effect on our older generation,” Bolduc said, adding that by taking seriously the idea – which has been disputed and debunked by some scientists – he did not feel that he was buying into “a conspiracy theory.”

In a brief follow up interview, Bolduc reconfirmed his belief.

“Anything is possible in the way the Chinese have been behaving,” he said. “You can’t trust the numbers they’re reporting. There are labs outside of Wuhan,” the Chinese city where the coronavirus outbreak is believed to have begun. “I am leaning toward supporting Sen. Cotton.”

Bolduc said his experience in Africa qualifies him to help people to understand the spread of the coronavirus.

He said he has no criticism of the way the federal government is dealing with the crisis and called for an end to partisan criticism...

[Emily]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/trump-owes-us-apology-chinese-scientist-center-covid-19-origin-theories-speaks-out

Trump ‘owes us an apology.’ Chinese scientist at the center of COVID-19 origin theories speaks out


By Jon Cohen Jul. 24, 2020 , 3:45 PM
...
The coronavirus pandemic has thrust virologist Shi Zhengli into a fierce spotlight. Shi, who’s been nicknamed “Bat Woman,” heads a group that studies bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), in the city in China where the pandemic began, and many have speculated that the virus that causes COVID-19 accidentally escaped from her lab—a theory promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump. Some have even suggested it could have been engineered there.

China has forcefully rejected such claims, but Shi (pronounced SHIH) herself has said very little publicly.

Now, Shi has broken her silence about the details of her work. On 15 July, she emailed Science answers to a series of written questions about the virus’ origin and the research at her institute. In them, Shi hit back at speculation that the virus leaked from WIV. She and her colleagues discovered the virus in late 2019, she says, in samples from patients who had a pneumonia of unknown origin. “Before that, we had never been in contact with or studied this virus, nor did we know of its existence,” Shi wrote.
...
Science shared Shi’s responses—available here in full (PDF)—with several leading researchers in other countries. “It’s a big contribution,” says Daniel Lucey of Georgetown University, an outbreak specialist who blogs about SARS-CoV-2 origin issues. “There are a lot of new facts that I wasn’t aware of. It’s very exciting to hear this directly from her.”

Shi’s answers were coordinated with public information staffers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, of which WIV is part, and it took her 2 months to prepare them. Evolutionary biologist Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research says he suspects Shi’s answers were “carefully vetted” by the Chinese government. “But they’re all logical, genuine, and stick to the science as one would have expected from a world-class scientist and one of the leading experts on coronaviruses,” Andersen says.

However, Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, who from the early days of the pandemic has urged that an investigation look into the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 entered humans through a laboratory accident, was decidedly unimpressed. “Most of these answers are formulaic, almost robotic, reiterations of statements previously made by Chinese authorities and state media,” Ebright says...

[sharon sanders]

I am sure she is under huge pressure in China. There are rumblings that some European countries as well as the US want to discuss reparations from China for the human and economic damage. She might say anything. She is not an objective party.

[bertrand789]

"Elle a ?galement not? que tout le personnel et les ?tudiants de son laboratoire avaient r?cemment ?t? test?s pour le SRAS-CoV-2 et que tout le monde ?tait n?gatif, "

On explique cela comment d'une part , d'autre part, quel le protocole de surveillance des personnels de ce genre d'?tablissement ?

En cas d'?v?nement, qui est pr?venu et l'on fait quoi, l? ou ailleurs ?

[Pathfinder]

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin's Regular Press Conference on July 29, 2020
...
Asahi Shimbun: We understand WHO experts have been in China for two weeks. Are they out of isolation? What are they doing now and what is on their schedule?

Wang Wenbin: As agreed through consultation, two WHO experts came to China in mid-July for preparatory consultations on science-based cooperation in COVID-19 origin-tracing. While in isolation, the WHO experts held several video conferences with Chinese experts and had in-depth exchange in global scientific progress in crowd, environment, molecular and zoonotic tracing of the origin as well as working plans for the next stage.

We have a fundamental consensus with WHO, that is, origin-tracing is a scientific issue that should be studied by scientists through international research and cooperation across the globe. It is an ongoing process probably concerning many countries and localities. WHO will conduct similar trips to other countries and regions in light of the actual need. We hope all relevant countries will also actively cooperate with WHO.
...

https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/t1802168.shtml

[Emily]

They will not be investigating a possible lab accident origin.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-world-health-organisation-inquiry-will-not-visit-wuhan-laboratory-kqbvw0tw8

[Emily]

FOX NEWS FLASHPublished 57 mins ago

Hong Kong virologist claiming coronavirus cover-up tells 'Bill Hemmer Reports': 'We don't have much time'
...
By Charles Creitz | Fox News
...
"I am waiting to tell all the things I know, provide all the evidence to the U.S. Government," Yan added. "And I want them to understand, and I also want the U.S. people to understand how terrible this is. It is not what you have seen ... This is something very different. We have to chase the true evidence and get the real evidence because this is a key part to stop this pandemic. We don't have much time."

https://www.foxnews.com/media/li-men...avirus-coverup

Here's a new communication. I think she's working on a paper that will detail how the virus could have emerged from several different labs in the area with varying safety standards. She is not pointing a finger at Shi's lab. She and Shi are in agreement that there is no evidence that the virus made its jump to humans at the Wuhan wet market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6wgbtK-ntE

（西语版） Li-Meng Yan / Steve Bannon Warroom EP. 304 - 27 jul
（西语版） warroom 304 闫博士班农：制造病毒只需要六个月 S?lo se necesitan SEIS MESES para crear el COVID.

[tetano]

Evolutionary origins of the SARS-CoV-2 sarbecovirus lineage responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic

• Maciej F. Boni,
• Philippe Lemey,
• Xiaowei Jiang,
• Tommy Tsan-Yuk Lam,
• Blair W. Perry,
• Todd A. Castoe,
• Andrew Rambaut &
• David L. Robertson

Nature Microbiology (2020)Cite this article


SARS-CoV-2 itself is not a recombinant of any sarbecoviruses detected to date, and its receptor-binding motif, important for specificity to human ACE2 receptors, appears to be an ancestral trait shared with bat viruses and not one acquired recently via recombination.

Divergence dates between SARS-CoV-2 and the bat sarbecovirus reservoir were estimated as 1948 (95% highest posterior density (HPD): 1879–1999), 1969 (95% HPD: 1930–2000) and 1982 (95% HPD: 1948–2009), indicating that the lineage giving rise to SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating unnoticed in bats for decades.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4?fbclid=IwAR1H9hLM0kOjZUlVZz95nczRqmEfRaET8rcBcTil7yWO2Z5V6ry-nEAJS7E

[Pathfinder]

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 3 August 2020

3 August 2020
...

One of the areas that we have been continuing to study is the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19.

The WHO advance team that travelled to China has now concluded their mission to lay the groundwork for further joint efforts to identify the virus origins.

As a result of these efforts, WHO and Chinese experts have drafted the Terms of Reference for the studies and programme of work for an international team, led by WHO.

The international team will include leading scientists and researchers from China and around the world.

Epidemiological studies will begin in Wuhan to identify the potential source of infection of the early cases.

Evidence and hypotheses generated through this work will lay the ground for further, longer-term studies.
...

https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---3-august-2020

[Pathfinder]

Ref: post #208, #215

So, from what I understand, the two experts, an animal health specialist and an epidemiologist, arrived in China around July 13, were quarantined and while in isolation, held several video conferences with Chinese experts. WHO, today August 03, announced that they have now concluded their mission.

[Pathfinder]

Chinese scientist who fled to US claims coronavirus originated from ‘military lab’

August 2, 20200236

A Chinese virologist who fled to the United States because she feared she would be killed claimed the coronavirus came from a military laboratory.
...
Dr Li said, “At that time, I had clearly assessed that the virus came from a Chinese Communist Party military laboratory.

“The Wuhan wet market was just being used as a decoy. ”
...

https://www.fr24news.com/a/2020/08/chinese-scientist-who-fled-to-us-claims-coronavirus-originated-from-military-lab.html

[bertrand789]

Tout le monde a compris que la cause est am?ricano-chinoise. Mais maintenant , on fait quoi ?

[Emily]

Tout le monde a compris que la cause est am?ricano-chinoise. Mais maintenant , on fait quoi ?

Not everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOevQMQmpm4

It would be ludicrous to think China and the US were working on a weaponized virus together. The GOF work they did may have fed into agendas operating along a parallel pathway, but not a collaborative effort on a weapon. Is the Russian government worried about this, (seriously)?

I can understand those blaming biological arms races in general. All the superpowers at the very least are involved. This is not going to change.

https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2020/07/vatican-cardinal-suggest-covid-19-made-in-laboratory-condemns-bacteriological-wars/

Vatican cardinal suggest COVID-19 made in laboratory, condemns ‘bacteriological wars’

• In?s San Mart?n
  Jul 21, 2020
  rome bureau chief

A Vatican cardinal serving as the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica says that COVID-19 coronavirus does not “come from God” but possibly from a laboratory, and denounced the “great powers” for organizing “bacteriological wars.”..

[bertrand789]

Et bien, on va finir le travail, par respect, pour tous les vrais croyants de toute confession...

Si l "archipr?tre de la basilique Saint-Pierre" signe l'halali, cela va aller vite, d?sormais ...

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/halali

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/i...storm-n1236254

Inside the Chinese lab central to the search for the coronavirus' origin
The institute is the focus of speculation and conspiracy theories — some emanating from the White House — about whether the virus leaked from the facility.
Inside the Wuhan lab at center of coronavirus controversy
Aug. 10, 202005:41
Aug. 10, 2020, 6:58 AM EDT / Updated Aug. 10, 2020, 8:53 AM EDT
By Janis Mackey Frayer and Denise Chow

WUHAN, China — Cloistered off a major thoroughfare, the Wuhan Institute of Virology could pass for a college campus, its red brick buildings distinguishable from their busy surroundings only by a long, imposing driveway lined with cameras, with a security guard standing sentry.

On the neatly manicured grounds beside a small man-made lake is a newer structure with silver sidings and few windows. This, the institute's BSL-4 lab — the first in China to receive the highest level of biosafety clearance — stands at the center of an international firestorm of recrimination over China's role in the coronavirus pandemic.

On Friday, NBC News became the first foreign news organization to be granted access to the institute since the outbreak began, meeting with senior scientists working to pinpoint the origins of the virus. The Wuhan institute and its scientists have become the focus of intense speculation and conspiracy theories — some emanating from the White House — about China's alleged efforts to downplay the outbreak's severity and whether the virus leaked from the facility.

During the roughly five-hour visit, which included a tour of the BSL-4 lab, where technicians clad in bubblelike protective suits handled small vials and other equipment while sealed inside a thick-walled glass enclosure, Wang Yanyi, director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said she and others felt unfairly targeted. She urged that politics not cloud investigations into how the coronavirus spilled over into humans...

[sharon sanders]

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/i...storm-n1236254

Inside the Chinese lab central to the search for the coronavirus' origin
The institute is the focus of speculation and conspiracy theories — some emanating from the White House — about whether the virus leaked from the facility.
Inside the Wuhan lab at center of coronavirus controversy
Aug. 10, 202005:41
Aug. 10, 2020, 6:58 AM EDT / Updated Aug. 10, 2020, 8:53 AM EDT
By Janis Mackey Frayer and Denise Chow

WUHAN, China — Cloistered off a major thoroughfare, the Wuhan Institute of Virology could pass for a college campus, its red brick buildings distinguishable from their busy surroundings only by a long, imposing driveway lined with cameras, with a security guard standing sentry.

On the neatly manicured grounds beside a small man-made lake is a newer structure with silver sidings and few windows. This, the institute's BSL-4 lab — the first in China to receive the highest level of biosafety clearance — stands at the center of an international firestorm of recrimination over China's role in the coronavirus pandemic.

On Friday, NBC News became the first foreign news organization to be granted access to the institute since the outbreak began, meeting with senior scientists working to pinpoint the origins of the virus. The Wuhan institute and its scientists have become the focus of intense speculation and conspiracy theories — some emanating from the White House — about China's alleged efforts to downplay the outbreak's severity and whether the virus leaked from the facility.

During the roughly five-hour visit, which included a tour of the BSL-4 lab, where technicians clad in bubblelike protective suits handled small vials and other equipment while sealed inside a thick-walled glass enclosure, Wang Yanyi, director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said she and others felt unfairly targeted. She urged that politics not cloud investigations into how the coronavirus spilled over into humans...

hat tip Shiloh -


Josh Rogin

@joshrogin
This
@NBCNews
report on their field trip to Wuhan Institute of Virology has several errors, but the most glaring is that it misrepresents what U.S. officials wrote in diplomatic cables in 2018. I'll explain:

Inside the Wuhan lab at the center of the coronavirus storm
NBC News was given access to the facility studying the highest-risk infectious agents, including those that are believed to have originated in bats.
nbcnews.com
1:11 PM ? Aug 10, 2020?TweetDeck
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Josh Rogin

@joshrogin
?
20h
Replying to
@joshrogin
and
@NBCNews
The NBC story says that U.S. officials "said they observed" serious safety issues at the lab. That's just wrong. The officials reported the Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists TOLD THEM about the safety issues. https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/… There's more...

Opinion | State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses
The U.S. government is still trying to understand the origins of covid-19.
washingtonpost.com
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Josh Rogin

@joshrogin

20h
Wang Yanyi, director of the WIV, told NBC reporters the U.S. officials visited in March 2018, two months after the first cable was written. The truth is they visited three times, both before and after the Jan. 2018 cable. Did U.S. officials make an entire visit? Not likely..
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Josh Rogin

@joshrogin

20h
That calls into question Wang's credibility. She also says biosafety was not discussed. Again, calling several U.S. diplomats fabricators? NBC reports that without any pushback. But there's more...
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Josh Rogin

@joshrogin

19h
The NBC reporters toured the lab, as if that would tell them anything. What did they expect to find, a piece of paper they forgot to throw out that says "Coronavirus Origin Evidence"? It's absurd to think that has any probative value. But there's more...
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Josh Rogin

@joshrogin

19h
The NBC report says that Fauci "discounted the idea that the virus had accidentally escaped from a lab." If you read the interview, Fauci said its not important if it was a lab accident (which is wrong) but not that he rules out the possibility.

[Pathfinder]

WHO will start its investigation into coronavirus origins in Wuhan but says case zero may be elsewhere
...

Zhuang Pinghui in Beijing
Published: 9:00pm, 11 Aug, 2020

World Health Organisation research into the origins of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 will start in Wuhan, but the WHO stressed that the central Chinese city might not be the place where the virus jumped from bats to humans.

Meanwhile, a Wuhan laboratory that has studied coronaviruses extensively and that US President Donald Trump claimed could be the origin of the virus would not be investigated, an official in charge of the lab told US television network NBC.
...
“Case zero is not always where your first cluster is. Case zero is obviously before in time but it may be in another place, so that is why you have to keep an open mind,” Ryan said.

“All hypotheses are on the table. You start with an open mind and you follow the evidence and you follow the data. If you follow the data and the science you will find hopefully the point at which the disease crossed the species barrier.
...

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3096958/who-will-start-its-investigation-coronavirus-origins-wuhan-says

[Pathfinder]

NIH Presses U.S. Nonprofit for Information on Wuhan Virology Lab

National Institutes of Health told EcoHealth Alliance it must hand over information and materials from Chinese research facility to resume funding for suspended grant

By Betsy McKay
Aug. 19, 2020 5:30 am ET

The National Institutes of Health told a small New York-based nonprofit that it must hand over information and materials from a research partner in Wuhan, China, that is under scrutiny by the Trump administration to win back a multimillion-dollar research grant.

Among the items the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance must provide to resume funding is a sample of the new coronavirus that the Wuhan researchers used to determine its genetic sequence, according to a July 8 letter from the NIH viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/nih-presses-u-s-nonprofit-for-information-on-wuhan-virology-lab-11597829400

[Emily]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/nih-imposes-outrageous-conditions-resuming-coronavirus-grant-targeted-trump#

"NIH imposes ‘outrageous’ conditions on resuming coronavirus grant targeted by Trump"

It's not outrageous for the lowly to question research for which they pay. Objections reek of elitism and entitlement, IMO.