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

[Emily]

SARS-CoV-2′s claimed natural origin is undermined by issues with genome sequences of its relative strains

Deigin, Y., & Segreto, R. (2021). SARS-CoV-2′s claimed natural origin is undermined by issues with genome sequences of its relative strains. BioEssays, 43:e2100015. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202100015

Abstract

RaTG13, MP789, and RmYN02 are the strains closest to SARS-CoV-2, and their existence came to light only after the start of the pandemic. Their genomes have been used to support a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 but after a close examination all of them exhibit several issues. We specifically address the presence in RmYN02 and closely related RacCSxxx strains of a claimed natural PAA/PVA amino acid insertion at the S1/S2 junction of their spike protein at the same position where the PRRA insertion in SARS-CoV-2 has created a polybasic furin cleavage site. We show that RmYN02/RacCSxxx instead of the claimed insertion carry a 6-nucleotide deletion in the region and that the 12-nucleotide insertion in SARS-CoV-2 remains unique among Sarbecoviruses. Also, our analysis of RaTG13 and RmYN02's metagenomic datasets found unexpected reads which could indicate possible contamination. Because of their importance to inferring SARS-CoV-2′s origin, we call for a careful reevaluation of RaTG13, MP789 and RmYN02 sequencing records and assembly methods.

[Shiloh]

Source: https://news.yahoo.com/china-blasts-...172435281.html

China blasts WHO chief over ‘offensive’ comments on COVID-19 origin search
Olafimihan Oshin
Sun, April 9, 2023 at 1:24 PM EDT·2 min read

Chinese health officials have called out the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for his “offensive” comments in the ongoing search for the origins of COVID-19.

Speaking at a news conference, the director of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shen Hongbing said that Ghebreyesus’ recent remarks were “offensive and disrespectful,” accusing the health agency of “attempting to smear China” and said it should avoid helping others “politicize COVID-19.”

In remarks made last month, Ghebreyesus said that the newly disclosed genetic material gathered in Wuhan, China should’ve been publicly shared three years ago.

The genetic material mentioned by Ghebreyesus was uploaded recently to a global database, being collected three years ago at a Wuhan-based wildlife market where wildlife was sold.

“As a responsible country and as scientists, we have always actively shared research results with scientists from around the world,” Shen said at a news conference...

[Mary Wilson]

Adding Genbase sequences to usher #337

aviczhl2 opened this issue Apr 10, 2023

Starting from March 2023, China began to upload most of its sequences not to GISAID but to a self-developed platform called GenBase. Sequences are free to download on NGDC by selecting dataset ”GenBase".

https://github.com/yatisht/usher/issues/337

[Pathfinder]

Chinese scientist claims COVID-19 may have originated from humans
...

Emre Aytekin |
10.04.2023 - Update : 11.04.2023

BEIJING
...
China's State Council's Information Office held a press conference in Beijing on Saturday to discuss latest findings in the origins-tracing of the virus.

Scientists claimed that the DNA data shared in Nature, an international scientific journal, showed that strains found in samples from the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, where the first cases emerged, are more likely to have come from humans.

Researchers analyzed more than 1,300 DNA samples collected from animals and the environment in the market.

There was no coronavirus in any of the 457 animal samples examined, which invalidates the possibility of transmission from animals.

“These findings indicate that in the cases on the market, the virus was transmitted from other people, not from animals sold,” said Tong Yigang of the Beijing University of Chemical Technology.

There was not yet sufficient evidence to back up recent studies that had suggested raccoon dogs were the origin of the coronavirus, he added.
...

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/health/chinese-scientist-claims-covid-19-may-have-originated-from-humans/2868679

[Pathfinder]

True origins of Covid may never be revealed, says Chinese doctor there 'at the very beginning'
...

By
Paul Nuki,
GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY EDITOR, LONDON
14 April 2023 • 8:09pm
...
Dr George Fu Gao, who is thought to know more about the origins of the disease than any other scientist, has told the Telegraph he is “not optimistic” the origin of the virus will ever be known, citing both political and scientific obstacles.

“It’s too sensitive; too politicised,” he said.
...
On the science, Dr Gao added that the theory that there was an intermediate animal species between bats and humans that provided a “reservoir” of the virus might be wrong.

“I too thought there must be an intermediate host - a reservoir - but now I’m not so sure. It’s possible there is no animal reservoir,” he said.
...
Dr Gao, who appeared good humoured and gregarious, has a political tightrope to walk at home and is almost certain to know more about Covid’s origins than he lets on.

No doubt aware that China had officially apologised for its slowness in dealing with the 2002/3 SARS epidemic, he was careful to claim the country had acted promptly on SARS-Cov-2.

China’s CDC had been the first to detect, isolate and share the genetic sequence of the virus, he told the London conference.
...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/true-origins-covid-never-be-revealed-china-george-fu-gao/

[Emily]

I hope he wasn't dismissed because he was in the way of using the lab leak theory as war propaganda against China.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/05/03/who-scientist-covid-lab-leak-theory-sexual-harassment/

WHO scientist who doubted Covid lab leak theory sacked for sexual harassment

Peter Ben Embarek, who contests the accusation of misconduct, led WHO's mission to China to investigate Covid's origins
By Nick Allen Washington 3 May 2023 • 11:04pm
A senior World Health Organisation scientist, who concluded it was "extremely unlikely" Covid-19 leaked from a Chinese laboratory, has been dismissed for sexual misconduct.

The UN agency said Peter Ben Embarek, a Danish scientist, was removed from his post last year.

Dr Embarek said he contested the accusation of harassment and was challenging his dismissal.

He previously led WHO's "One Health" initiative on diseases jumping from animals to humans.

Dr Embarek was the most senior WHO representative on a mission to China in 2021 to investigate where Covid-19 came from.

It determined that a leak from the laboratory in Wuhan was "highly unlikely" despite calls from other scientists to investigate that possibility...

[sharon sanders]

Association between SARS-CoV-2 and metagenomic content of samples from the Huanan Seafood Market

View ORCID Profile
Jesse D. Bloom
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.04.25.538336

This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review
80001901146

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ABSTRACT


The role of the Huanan Seafood Market in the early SARS-CoV-2 outbreak remains unclear. Recently the Chinese CDC released data from deep sequencing of environmental samples collected from the market after it was closed on January-1-2020 (Liu et al. 2023a). Prior to this release, Crits-Christoph et al. (2023) analyzed data from a subset of the samples. Both studies concurred that the samples contained genetic material from a variety of species, including some like raccoon dogs that are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2. However, neither study systematically analyzed the relationship between the amount of genetic material from SARS-CoV-2 and different animal species. Here I implement a fully reproducible computational pipeline that jointly analyzes the number of reads mapping to SARS-CoV-2 and the mitochondrial genomes of chordate species across the full set of samples. I validate the presence of genetic material from numerous species, and calculate mammalian mitochondrial compositions similar to those reported by Crits-Christoph et al. (2023). However, the number of SARS-CoV-2 reads is not consistently correlated with reads mapping to non-human susceptible species. For instance, 14 samples have >20% of their chordate mitochondrial material from raccoon dogs, but only one of these samples contains any SARS-CoV-2 reads, and that sample only has 1 of ∼200,000,000 reads mapping to SARS-CoV-2. Instead, SARS-CoV-2 reads are most correlated with reads mapping to various fish, such as catfish and largemouth bass. These results suggest that while metagenomic analysis of the environmental samples is useful for identifying animals or animal products sold at the market, co-mingling of animal and viral genetic material is unlikely to reliably indicate whether any animals were infected by SARS-CoV-2.

source: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...04.25.538336v2

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65708746

Covid: Top Chinese scientist says don’t rule out lab leak
Published 1 day ago

By John Sudworth & Simon Maybin
BBC News

The possibility the Covid virus leaked from a laboratory should not be ruled out, a former top Chinese government scientist has told BBC News.

As head of China's Centre for Disease Control (CDC), Prof George Gao played a key role in the pandemic response and efforts to trace its origins.

China's government dismisses any suggestion the disease may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory.

But Prof Gao is less forthright....

[Pathfinder]

HAZARD ZONE Scientists at Wuhan lab were mixing world’s most deadly coronaviruses to create a new mutant strain, investigators say

Ed SouthgateJames Liveris
Published: 15:31, 11 Jun 2023 Updated: 15:38, 11 Jun 2023

SCIENTISTS were working with the Chinese military to create a mutant virus and pursue bioweapons just as the pandemic started, investigators believe.

They were running secret dangerous experiments combining the most deadly coronaviruses, which reportedly caused a leak from a Wuhan lab.

And it is believed vaccine research was going on there in the autumn before the outbreak, pertinent to the Covid-19 vaccination.

The findings follow a team of US investigators who combed through top-secret intercepted communications and research.

They say there is no published information on the work because it was done with researchers from the Chinese military, which was funding the projects.

Evidence suggested researchers working on the experiments were taken to hospital with Covid-like symptoms in November 2019, just a month before the West became aware of the pandemic.
...
An investigator said: "We were rock-solid confident that this was likely Covid-19."
...
Dr Huff, who worked at EcoHealth Alliance from 2014 to 2016 and served as vice president from 2015, worked on the classified side of the research programme as a US government scientist.
...
He claimed: "China knew from day one that this was a genetically engineered agent.
...

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/22659208/scientists-wuhan-lab-deadly-coronaviruses-strain-investigators/

[Pathfinder]

First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources

The three scientists were engaged in “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses when they fell ill

MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER, MATT TAIBBI, AND ALEX GUTENTAG
JUN 13, 2023

After years of official pronouncements to the contrary, significant new evidence has emerged that strengthens the case that the SARS-CoV-2 virus accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

According to multiple U.S. government officials interviewed as part of a lengthy investigation by Public and Racket, the first people infected by the virus, “patients zero,” included Ben Hu, a researcher who led the WIV’s “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses, which increases the infectiousness of viruses.
...
Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus.
...
When a source was asked how certain they were that these were the identities of the three WIV scientists who developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in the fall of 2019, we were told, “100%”

“Ben Hu is essentially the next Shi Zhengli,” said Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and coauthor with Matt Ridley of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid19. Shi is known as “the bat woman of China,” and led the gain-of-function research at the WIV. “He was her star pupil. He had been making chimeric SARS-like viruses and testing these in humanized mice. If I had to guess who would be doing this risky virus research and most at risk of getting accidentally infected, it would be him.”

Hu and Yu researched the novel lineage of SARS-like viruses from which SARS-CoV-2 hails, and in 2019 coauthored a paper with Shi Zhengli that described SARS-like lineages they had studied over the years.

Jamie Metzl, a former member of the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on human genome editing who raised questions starting in early 2020 about a possible research-related pandemic origin, said, “It’s a game changer if it can be proven that Hu got sick with COVID-19 before anyone else. That would be the ‘smoking gun.’ Hu was the lead hands-on researcher in Shi’s lab.”
...

https://public.substack.com/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid-19

[Pathfinder]

US government suspends funding so that Wuhan lab ‘does not receive another dollar’ over stonewalling COVID probe

By David Propper
July 18, 2023 10:21pm Updated

The US government has scraped funding for the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has long been scrutinized as the possible origin of COVID-19, after the facility didn’t fork over documents about safety and security, according to a report.
...
The Department of Health and Human Services informed the Wuhan lab of its determination and is looking to completely stop any future funds from going to the lab, the memo indicates.

After a review that started in September, the agency found the lab is not compliant with federal regulations.

“This action will ensure that [Wuhan Institute of Virology] does not receive another dollar of federal funding,” an HHS spokesperson told the outlet.

...

https://nypost.com/2023/07/18/us-government-cuts-funding-from-wuhan-lab-off-report/

-------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES Office of the Secretary Washington, D.C. 20201

Action Referral Memorandum for Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)

On behalf of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), I hereby suspend and propose the debarment of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Capital Construction ( WIV from participating in United States Federal Government procurement and nonprocurement programs. This action is initiated pursuant to 2 C.F.R. Part 180. HHS adopted and gave regulatory effect to 2 C.F.R. Part 180 at 2 C.F.R. Subpart 376.10.

...

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Notice-Memo.pdf

[Pathfinder]

WHO chief pushes China for ‘full access’ to determine COVID’s origins, Financial Times reports

Reuters
September 17, 20233:21 AM CSTUpdated a day ago

WHO's Tedros visits mRNA vaccine technology transfer site in Cape Town

Sept 17 (Reuters) - The chief of the World Health Organization urged Beijing to offer more information on the origins of COVID-19 and is ready to send a second team to probe the matter, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

"We're pressing China to give full access, and we are asking countries to raise it during their bilateral meetings — to urge Beijing to co-operate," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the newspaper.
...

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-chief-pushes-china-full-access-determine-covids-origins-ft-2023-09-17/

----------------------------------

WHO chief pushes China for ‘full access’ to solve Covid’s origins

Donato Paolo Mancini in Geneva SEPTEMBER 16 2023
...
“Unless we get evidence beyond reasonable doubt, we cannot just say this or that,” he said. But he believes “we will get the answer. It’s a matter of time.”
...
“If we know [the origin], then we can prevent the next one. So it’s science,” he said. “It will not be morally correct if we don’t know what happened.”
...

https://www.ft.com/content/b25ff661-92fc-4e9b-bedf-a0dd24f12aa4

[Emily]

Kim Iverson interviews Jeffrey Sachs on Sar2's origin, including the possible US role.

https://rumble.com/v3jyjo8-september-22-2023.html

[sharon sanders]

While we were getting blasted for this thread.....thank you to everyone who stuck with us....

hat tip Shiloh



Secret Warnings About Wuhan Research Predated the Pandemic


A series of previously unreported alarms and clashes over US-funded research in China reveal long-standing friction between two groups of government scientists: those who prioritize international collaboration, and those who are kept up at night by the idea that cutting-edge technologies could end up in the wrong hands.

BY KATHERINE EBAN

ILLUSTRATION BY ISABEL SELIGER

NOVEMBER 21, 2023

snip


In October 2020, VF has learned, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told Fauci that DOE scientists had found evidence suggesting that the pandemic had originated at the WIV.

more...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/covid-origins-warnings-nih-department-of-energy

[Pathfinder]

Opinion: Why Are So Few People Investigating Covid’s Origins?

China may be blocking access to ground zero, but there is evidence to uncover elsewhere — if only more people would try.

BY ALINA CHAN 12.22.2023
...
The U.S. alone has suffered more than a million Covid-19 deaths and hundreds of millions of infections, leaving many struggling with long Covid and pandemic-related mental health problems. Experts have estimated that Covid-19 will cost the U.S. $16 trillion — nearly half of its national debt for context. In light of all this, one would expect an army of investigative journalists to be digging for the truth, and a bipartisan commission with subpoena powers to be in full force to find the origin of Covid-19.
...
China’s refusal to allow access to the Wuhan laboratory and other key pieces of information has made a full investigation nearly impossible. However, the coronavirus research in Wuhan was part of a U.S.-China collaboration, suggesting that there are tranches of evidence to be explored here at home. And yet, as journalist Katherine Eban recently wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, most news outlets have avoided truly digging into this evidence.
...
Most notably, in 2021, a group of amateur online sleuths known at the time as Drastic obtained a research proposal written by U.S. and Wuhan scientists and submitted to a Department of Defense agency in 2018. The proposal detailed plans to grow or synthesize novel SARS-like coronaviruses from bats, and to test these on human airway cells and humanized mice — models for human SARS infection. The proposal shows that the scientists specifically wanted to bring novel SARS-like coronaviruses collected in nature back to the lab and insert a feature called a furin cleavage site, which could alter — and even enhance — a virus’ ability to transmit across species and cause disease.

The Defense Department ultimately rejected that proposal, but the SARS-CoV-2 virus that emerged in Wuhan in late 2019 possessed just such a furin cleavage site — a feature so far not observed in other SARS-like viruses found in nature. To a skeptical observer, it was as if these scientists proposed to put horns on horses and not two years later a unicorn showed up in their city.

A natural question is whether the Wuhan scientists undertook any of this work on their own despite the funding rejection from the U.S. Defense Department, and if so, whether their U.S. counterparts worried, or even knew, that this was the case. Despite all this, the leak of the 2018 proposal — a significant development — was largely ignored by most major news outlets. And we have yet to see any formal government investigation compel these U.S. scientists to hand over all communications and documents exchanged with Wuhan scientists.
...

https://undark.org/2023/12/22/why-are-so-few-people-investigating-covids-origins/