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

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2202769119

A call for an independent inquiry into the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus
Neil L. Harrison nh2298@columbia.edu and Jeffrey D. Sachs sachs@ei.columbia.edu Authors Info & Affiliations
May 19, 2022
119 (21) e2202769119
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2202769119

Since the identification of theSARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, China, in January 2020 (1), the origin of the virus has been a topic of intense scientific debate and public speculation. The two main hypotheses are that the virus emerged from human exposure to an infected animal [“zoonosis” (2)] or that it emerged in a research-related incident (3). The investigation into the origin of the virus has been made difficult by the lack of key evidence from the earliest days of the outbreak—there’s no doubt that greater transparency on the part of Chinese authorities would be enormously helpful. Nevertheless, we argue here that there is much important information that can be gleaned from US-based research institutions, information not yet made available for independent, transparent, and scientific scrutiny...

 

[Pathfinder]

Chinese Fakeaway: Court Bans Expert From Alleging Cover-Up COVID’s Chinese Lab Origins
...
By Thomas Hochwarter May 30 , 2022
...
Hamburg-based nanoscience specialist Prof. Dr. Roland Wiesendanger said in an interview with German magazine Cicero, published in February of this year, that Prof. Dr. Christian Drosten from Berlin’s Charite Clinic was consciously refusing to tell people the truth about the origin of the COVID-19 virus.

Wiesendanger has said there was evidence that a botched experiment at a Chinese lab was at the core of the pandemic.

The court in Hamburg refused to make any ruling on this claim.

Instead, judges ordered Prof. Dr. Roland Wiesendanger to stop ‘deliberately spreading false information’ about Dr. Drosten, the country’s leading specialist, who he accused of a cover-up over whether the virus first emerged from a research lab in Wuhan, in central China.

In February 2021, Wiesendanger – a nanoscience expert – released a working paper suggesting the virus had escaped from a secret Wuhan research program.

But Drosten, 49, was one of 27 international scientists behind a statement in British medical journal The Lancet condemning theories that the virus was artificially created and did not have a natural origin.
...
Wiesendanger, 61, also dismissed international experts’ theory that the COVID-19 virus had an animal origin.

The physicist said virologists who backed this theory were deliberately covering up the truth.
...
Born in the Swiss city of Basel, Wiesendanger has lectured at the University of Hamburg since 1993. He has been awarded three times in a row with the ERC Advanced Grant of the European Research Council as the first scientist in Europe.

The nanoscience specialist is the author or co-author of more than 600 scientific publications as well as several books.
...
https://www.zenger.news/2022/05/30/...alleging-cover-up-covids-chinese-lab-origins/


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

The paper referenced in the story was posted on February 18, 2021:


18 February 2021

The Goal: A Broad and Open ConversationCoronavirus Origin Study Released


The coronavirus has led to a worldwide crisis for over a year. In a new study, nanoscientist Prof. Dr. Roland Wiesendanger illuminates the origins of the virus. His findings conclude there are a number of quality sources indicating a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the cause of the current pandemic.

The study was conducted from January to December 2020, and is based on an interdisciplinary research approach and extensive research using a wide range of information sources. These include scientific literature, articles in print and online media, and personal communication with international researchers. They do not provide any science-based proof, but they do provide numerous significant indications:

• In contrast to early coronavirus-based epidemics such as SARS and MERS, the scientific community has yet to identify the interim host that made the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from bats to humans possible. Thus, there is no sound basis for a zoonotic theory as a possible explanation for the pandemic.
• The SARS-CoV-2 viruses are astonishingly effective at binding to human cell receptors and infecting human cells, thanks to its special cell receptor binding domains combined with a special (furin) cleavage site of the coronavirus spike protein. This is the first time a coronavirus has had both of these characteristics and indicates a nonnatural origin of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen.
• There were no bats for sale at the wet market in the center of Wuhan, which is the suspected hub of the outbreak. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, however, houses one of the largest collections of bat pathogens in the world, taken from distant caves in southern Chinese provinces. It is extremely unlikely that bats naturally made their way to Wuhan, from almost 2,000 km away, to then start a worldwide pandemic in the immediate vicinity of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
• One research group at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been researching the genetic manipulation of coronaviruses for many years with the goal of making these more infectious, more dangerous, and more fatal. This has been demonstrated by numerous publications.
• Safety measures were documented as being insufficient at the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
• There are numerous direct indications that the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen is of laboratory origin and point to a young researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as being the first person to be infected. In addition, there are indications that the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology into the city of Wuhan and beyond. There are also indications that the Chinese authorities conducted an examination of the institute in the first half of October 2019.

“The current coronavirus pandemic is not only dominating current headlines but will occupy us for many years to come, not least because of its social and economic effects. Dealing with the corona crisis has been the predominant topic both in politics and in the media. However, a critical science-based examination of the question of the current pandemic’s origin is of great importance today, because only on the basis of this knowledge can adequate precautions be taken to minimize the probability of similar pandemics occurring again in the future,” explains Prof. Dr. Roland Wiesendanger.

The study was completed in January 2021 and initially distributed and discussed in scientific circles. Its publication aims at opening up a wide-ranging conversation, particularly with regard to the ethical aspects of such “gain-of-function” research, which makes pathogens more infectious, dangerous, and fatal for humans. On releasing his study, Prof. Wisendanger explained, “This can no longer only be a matter for a small group of scientists; it is urgent that it becomes a matter of public debate.”

The study has been published at http://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.31754.80323.

https://www.uni-hamburg.de/en/newsroom/presse/2021/pm8.html

 

[Shiloh]

Source: https://spectatorworld.com/topic/fauci-harvard-and-the-ccp/

The Harvard connection
Was a Fauci-endorsed Chinese donation part of the lab-leak cover up?
May 26, 2022 | 2:37 pm
From the Magazine
Written by: Ashley Rindsberg

On the morning of Sunday February 2, 2020, Anthony Fauci, then in the middle of putting together America’s pandemic response, received an unusual email with a highly unusual request. The email, revealed as part of a tranche of FOIA documents requested by the Intercept, was from George Daley, the dean of Harvard Medical School. “Alan Garber, Harvard’s provost, and I met yesterday with a team led by Jack Xia, the CEO of China’s Evergrande Company, and Dr. Jack Liu, Evergrande’s chief health officer,” Daley wrote. Addressing the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as “Tony,” he asked for “whatever information you are willing to share on your current efforts to coordinate a response.”

It was an odd question on its own: What business did Evergrande — then the most valuable real estate company on earth, but also widely known to be catastrophically indebted — have with the director of America’s pandemic response? But Daley’s next line was stranger still. “[Xia and Liu] stated thy [sic] were acting on behalf of Dr Zhong Nanshan, China’s key point person on the coronavirus outbreak (see below).” Below was an email from Evergrande’s Liu to Daley which, save for an opening line, is entirely redacted...

 

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...na-still-withholding-data-covid-origins-says/


China still withholding data on Covid origins, WHO panel suggests
A report also called for 'further investigation' of the lab leak theory, amid concerns it is getting harder to trace how the pandemic began
By Sarah Newey, Global Health Security Correspondent 9 June 2022 • 5:52pm


In a veiled criticism of China, a World Health Organization panel has warned that key data which could shed light on Covid’s origins is “not available yet”.

China’s reluctance to cooperate marks a further blow to efforts to unravel how the pandemic began, and comes as a senior WHO official warned delays mean the world may never know how Covid jumped to humans.

In the first report from a WHO expert group formed last autumn, scientists said significant “gaps in our knowledge” still persist, while several studies requested from China in February 2021 remain incomplete.

The panel - known as the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (Sago) - also revealed that WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote to the Chinese government twice in February 2022 “requesting information on the status of studies” on Covid origins.

This included the results of blood tests of samples from early suspected human cases, the results of “traceback studies” exploring Sars-Cov-2’s spread in animals, and further details on the lab-leak hypothesis.

The WHO declined to share details of the correspondence, although Sago members said China did provide some of this information.

But the preliminary 52-page report made it clear that scientists' understanding of Covid’s origins is inconclusive because “key pieces of data… are not yet available”, especially raw data from China.


Lab leak 'should be investigated'


Although Sago members said Sars-Cov-2 probably jumped to humans via animals, the panel called for a raft of further research into every theory - including the hypothesis that the virus emerged after a breach in biosecurity at a lab in Wuhan, where the first cases were identified.

“That was not really covered by the first trip… there was not really an investigation into this hypothesis,” said Dr Jean-Claude Manuguerra, co-chair of Sago, referring to a WHO-convened team who visited China in early 2021.

He told a press briefing that although Sago has not identified any new leads which indicate a lab leak took place, “we should investigate it further”. ...

 

[sharon sanders]

hat tip Shiloh





Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
Thanks for the critiques, @MichelWorobey. However, I still think: (1) early COVID-19 case & sequence data that have been released by the Chinese government are likely incomplete, (2) for this reason, the origin of human #SARSCoV2 in Wuhan remains unclear.
Quote Tweet

Michael Worobey
@MichaelWorobey
· Jun 7
My views on recent VF article % famous "deleted sequences" study by @jbloom_lab: Neat sleuth work. But mostly ‘stolen valor’ & unsupported accusations of malfeasance, laundered by a compromised peer review process. Allow me to explain. 1/103 https://vanityfair.com/news/2022/03...it-at-the-center-of-the-lab-leak-controversy…
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
I hope anyone interested in topic will re-read my paper in question (https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/38/12/5211/6353034…), which I stand by (although there is new info affecting Fig 6 & 4th to last paragraph of Discussion, see below). Since I know everyone is busy, I’ll summarize below

academic.oup.com
Recovery of Deleted Deep Sequencing Data Sheds More Light on the Early Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 Epidemic
Abstract. The origin and early spread of SARS-CoV-2 remains shrouded in mystery. Here, I identify a data set containing SARS-CoV-2 sequences from early in the W
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
First, why do I think data released by Chinese govt are likely incomplete? Practical effect of deleting Wuhan University sequences from Sequence Read Archive was no one knew they existed. Yes, I agree mutations were listed in a paper on diagnostics, and my paper notes that.
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
But in practice, people find #SARSCoV2 sequences in SRA, NCBI, GISAID, etc---not scouring tables in the journal Small, which is a chemistry journal.
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
For instance, joint WHO-China report says they assembled list of early sequence data by looking at databases including NCBI SRA. Unfortunately, these Wuhan University samples were deleted from SRA before joint WHO-China team started their work, and so aren’t included.

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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
If these partial sequences from early Wuhan outbreak samples (which is how they were originally described) had been in SRA in late 2020, joint WHO-China team could have asked to fully sequence samples, get more metadata & include in analyses.
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
But it’s worse: after my paper, we learned Wuhan University actually deleted *two* projects, only one of which described in my paper. Second deletion was only identifiable after reporters started obtaining FOIAs of Wuhan University’s e-mails to NCBI.
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
Below is Wuhan University’s e-mail (https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1509598934586429468…), which updates version in Fig 6 of my paper, where NIH had redacted accessions. For context of e-mail, see correspondence between Wuhan University & NCBI starting on page 74 here: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21473774/nih-foia-request-56712_redacted.pdf…
Quote Tweet

Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
· Mar 31
Second, actual e-mail request (below) for deletion from SRA mentions a variety of reasons, none of which are related to the journal deleting the data availability statement during copy editing. (22/n)
Show this thread



Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
Francis Collins was then person who invited Rasmus Nielsen & Sergei Pond to the meeting, as described on page 213 of the FOIA-ed e-mails here:

documentcloud.org
NIH FOIA Request 56712_Redacted
NIH Emails obtained by Empower Oversight in FOIA litigation.
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
I thought meeting w NIH would be scientific discussion & I assume they thought same. Furthermore, given how meeting unfolded, I strongly feel it would have been wrong for me to revise or withdraw pre-print as one meeting attendee advocated:
Quote Tweet

Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
· Mar 31
However, as scientist I’m often asked to attest to statements like “the funder had no role in study design, interpretation of data, preparation of manuscript, or decision to publish.” (11/n)
Show this thread
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
As I have said publicly, I don’t think NIH acted intentionally wrongly in deleting Wuhan University project & I agree with official NLM report that this particular deletion was honest error, as Dr. Tabak recently stated to Congress:
Quote Tweet

Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
· May 11
Replying to @emilyakopp
Just to address this, explanation Dr Tabak provides Rep. Herrera Beutler above seems correct w regard to deletion of Wuhan #SARSCoV2 seqs in PRJNA612766 from Sequence Read Archive. NIH report at https://nlm.nih.gov/news/NLM_Continu..._Sequence_Data _Needs.html… consistent w my understanding of what happened at NCBI (1/3)
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
However, I continue to believe that NIH should allow a check for other deletions. I said this in my private e-mails to Steve Sherry & others at NIH. Now that these e-mails have been FOIA-ed, I stand by this private view publicly: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21473774/nih-foia-request-56712_redacted.pdf…



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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
Mostly likely checking for other deletions won't find anything relevant, but we won't know unless we actually look. Given importance of topic, I think we should look.
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
Finally, I regret the #SARSCoV2 origins topic has become filled with invective & mean-spirited attacks. I see many people with diverse views being targeted with personal attacks. I know you have been the target of such attacks yourself, which is wrong.
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
·
Jun 8
However, it remains important to continue to try to understand the origins of the virus and openly debate unresolved scientific issues, and so thanks for your contributions to the discussion.
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Bloom Lab
@jbloom_lab
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Jun 8
Continuing to openly study the possible origins of the virus is crucial both for the sake of science itself, and to design strategies to mitigate the future risks of both zoonotic and lab-based outbreaks.
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[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.inverelltimes.com.au/story/7776017/china-calls-covid-lab-leak-theory-a-lie/?cs=11644

China calls COVID 'lab leak' theory a lie
Updated June 10 2022 at 5:16am, first published 5:11am

China has attacked the theory that the coronavirus pandemic may have originated as a leak from a Chinese laboratory as a politically motivated lie.

The attack follows the World Health Organisation recommending in its strongest terms yet that a deeper probe is needed into whether a lab accident may be to blame.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian rejected accusations that China had not fully cooperated with investigators, saying it welcomed a science-based probe but rejected any political manipulation...

 

[Emily]

China rules once again. The only indictments are against China hawks
https://www.ibtimes.sg/ex-trump-adv...charge-against-mark-meadows-dan-scavino-65017
Even Dems are confused.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/schiff-justice-department-meadows-scavino-january-6-committee
China Initiative dumped in early March:
https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-...-china-ending-initiative-against-our-greatest
People started archiving this page in March likely expecting it to get 'disappeared.'
https://www.justice.gov/archives/ns...hina-initiative-and-compilation-china-related
https://web.archive.org/web/*/https...hina-initiative-and-compilation-china-related

 

[Pathfinder]

Jamie Metzl
@JamieMetzl
·23h

Whether it’s true or not that @WHO chief ⁦@DrTedros 'secretly blames China lab for Covid leak,’ there’s no doubt he’s played an essential role fighting for a full investigation into #COVID19 origins.
...

https://twitter.com/JamieMetzl/status/1538281144864477186

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

WHO chief 'believes Covid DID leak from Wuhan lab' after a 'catastrophic accident' in 2019 despite publicly maintaining 'all hypotheses remain on the table'

By GLEN OWEN POLITICAL EDITOR FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

PUBLISHED: 17:01 EDT, 18 June 2022 | UPDATED: 18:20 EDT, 18 June 2022

The head of the World Health Organisation privately believes the Covid pandemic started following a leak from a Chinese laboratory, a senior Government source claims.

While publicly the group maintains that ‘all hypotheses remain on the table’ about the origins of Covid, the source said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), had recently confided to a senior European politician that the most likely explanation was a catastrophic accident at a laboratory in Wuhan, where infections first spread during late 2019.
...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...eak-Wuhan-lab-catastrophic-accident-2019.html

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

Jamie Metzl
@JamieMetzl

There is a growing and, perhaps, near universal consensus among experts and the general public alike that #COVID19 may well stem from an accidental lab incident in China. It’s up to our national and international political leaders to now ensure a comprehensive investigation.

5:12 AM · Jun 19, 2022·Twitter for iPhone

https://twitter.com/JamieMetzl/status/1538479716234981378

 

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/06/27/the-case-for-the-lab-leak-theory/

The case for the lab-leak theory
Why of all the cities in the world did Covid first emerge in Wuhan?
Matt Ridley
27th June 2022

I have covered genomic research for years and written several books on the topic. I have a reputation as a strong supporter of biotechnology. But I had not realised just how risky some of the experiments being done on viruses have become in recent years, let alone that they are happening in the centre of a large city.

In recent years in the city of Wuhan, in China, scientists were combining the genomes of coronaviruses taken from bats and making chimera (hybrid viruses) that grew up to 10,000 times more quickly than their parent viruses and were more than three times as lethal to ‘humanised’ mice. Whether similar experiments resulted in the Covid-19 pandemic is still unknown, but they could have done.

In researching our book Viral, updated and newly released in paperback, on the origin of Covid-19, the scientist Alina Chan and I concluded that it is highly likely the outbreak began in Wuhan. The earliest Covid cases in other parts of China, and other countries, link straight back to this modern and prosperous city on the banks of the Yangtze. For instance, a case in Beijing who fell ill as early as 17 December 2019 turns out to have travelled that day from Wuhan.

There is no longer much doubt that the first cases in Wuhan were in November or possibly October 2019. This fits with a leaked Chinese government document in 2020, which said an early case had been retrospectively identified on 17 November. Yet official Chinese sources still say the first known case was in December.

Nor is there much doubt that the virus came originally from a horseshoe bat living a long way south of Wuhan. The closest relatives of SARS-CoV-2 in the wild were found in horseshoe bats in a mineshaft in Yunnan, in a limestone cave in Laos and in a cave in Mengla county on the Yunnan-Laos border. The central question is, and always has been, who or what brought a bat virus more than a thousand miles north in the autumn of 2019 to the middle of a modern city?...

 

[sharon sanders]

Source: https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/06/27/the-case-for-the-lab-leak-theory/

The case for the lab-leak theory
Why of all the cities in the world did Covid first emerge in Wuhan?
Matt Ridley
27th June 2022

I have covered genomic research for years and written several books on the topic. I have a reputation as a strong supporter of biotechnology. But I had not realised just how risky some of the experiments being done on viruses have become in recent years, let alone that they are happening in the centre of a large city.

In recent years in the city of Wuhan, in China, scientists were combining the genomes of coronaviruses taken from bats and making chimera (hybrid viruses) that grew up to 10,000 times more quickly than their parent viruses and were more than three times as lethal to ‘humanised’ mice. Whether similar experiments resulted in the Covid-19 pandemic is still unknown, but they could have done.

In researching our book Viral, updated and newly released in paperback, on the origin of Covid-19, the scientist Alina Chan and I concluded that it is highly likely the outbreak began in Wuhan. The earliest Covid cases in other parts of China, and other countries, link straight back to this modern and prosperous city on the banks of the Yangtze. For instance, a case in Beijing who fell ill as early as 17 December 2019 turns out to have travelled that day from Wuhan.

There is no longer much doubt that the first cases in Wuhan were in November or possibly October 2019. This fits with a leaked Chinese government document in 2020, which said an early case had been retrospectively identified on 17 November. Yet official Chinese sources still say the first known case was in December.

Nor is there much doubt that the virus came originally from a horseshoe bat living a long way south of Wuhan. The closest relatives of SARS-CoV-2 in the wild were found in horseshoe bats in a mineshaft in Yunnan, in a limestone cave in Laos and in a cave in Mengla county on the Yunnan-Laos border. The central question is, and always has been, who or what brought a bat virus more than a thousand miles north in the autumn of 2019 to the middle of a modern city?...

Again, our thread from 2020 documenting possible cases in 2019 and mentioning possible Yangtze river connection:

China - COVID-19 - 1st known case traces back to November 2019 - FluTrackers documentation of possible early 2019 outbreak trend

 

[Emily]

This paper suggests that the Wuhan market was a superspreader location, rather than the origin of Sars2 as some other scientists are claiming they have proved, again.

https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum...-cov-2-infection-at-the-huanan-seafood-market
SARS-CoV-2 infection at the Huanan seafood market

 

[sharon sanders]

bump this

 

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022...enting-a-real-investigation-into-the-pandemic

Why the Chair of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission Thinks The US Government Is Preventing a Real Investigation Into the Pandemic
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs says he is “pretty convinced [COVID-19] came out of US lab biotechnology” and warns that there is dangerous virus research taking place without public oversight.
Current Affairs
filed 02 August 2022 in The Virus

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs is the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and the President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has also served as the chair of the COVID-19 commission for leading medical journal the Lancet. Through his investigations as the head of the COVID-19 commission, Prof. Sachs has come to the conclusion that there is extremely dangerous biotechnology research being kept from public view, that the United States was supporting much of this research, and that it is very possible that SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, originated through dangerous virus research gone awry.

Prof. Sachs recently co-authored a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calling for an independent inquiry into the virus’s origins. He believes that there is clear proof that the National Institutes of Health and many members of the scientific community have been impeding a serious investigation of the origins of COVID-19 and deflecting attention away from the hypothesis that risky U.S.-supported research may have led to millions of deaths. If that hypothesis is true, the implications would be earth-shaking, because it might mean that esteemed members of the scientific community bore responsibility for a global calamity. In this interview, Prof. Sachs explains how he, as the head of the COVID-19 commission for a leading medical journal, came to the conclusion that powerful actors were preventing a real investigation from taking place. He also explains why it is so important to get to the bottom of the origins of COVID: because, he says, there is extremely dangerous research taking place with little accountability, and the public has a right to know since we are the ones whose lives are being put at risk without our consent...

 

[Mary Wilson]

The COVID lab leak theory is dead. Here’s how we know the virus came from a Wuhan market

Published: August 14, 2022 4.04pm EDT
Dake King/AP/AAP

My colleagues and I published the most detailed studies of the earliest events in the COVID-19 pandemic last month in the journal Science.

Together, these papers paint a coherent evidence-based picture of what took place in the city of Wuhan during the latter part of 2019.

The take-home message is the COVID pandemic probably did begin where the first cases were detected – at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.

At the same time this lays to rest the idea that the virus escaped from a laboratory.

Huanan market was the pandemic epicentre

An analysis of the geographic locations of the earliest known COVID cases – dating to December 2019 – revealed a strong clustering around the Huanan market. This was true not only for people who worked at or visited the market, but also for those who had no links to it.

Although there will be many missing cases, there’s no evidence of widespread sampling bias: the first COVID cases were not identified simply because they were linked to the Huanan market.

The Huanan market was the pandemic epicentre. From its origin there, the SARS-CoV-2 virus rapidly spread to other locations in Wuhan in early 2020 and then to the rest of the world.

The Huanan market is an indoor space about the size of two soccer fields. The word “seafood” in its name leaves a misleading impression of its function. When I visited the market in 2014, a variety of live wildlife was for sale including raccoon dogs and muskrats.

... The lab leak theory rests on an unfortunate coincidence: that SARS-CoV-2 emerged in a city with a laboratory that works on bat coronaviruses.

Some of these bat coronaviruses are closely related to SARS-CoV-2. But not close enough to be direct ancestors.

Sadly, the focus on the Wuhan Institute of Virology has distracted us from a far more important connection: that, like SARS-CoV-1 (which emerged in late 2002) before it, there’s a direct link between a coronavirus outbreak and a live animal market.

https://theconversation.com/the-cov...now-the-virus-came-from-a-wuhan-market-188163

________________________________________________________________
The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic

https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum...early-epicenter-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-aaas

 

[Pathfinder]

Jamie Metzl
@JamieMetzl
·Aug 15

I have great respect for anyone and everyone following the evidence and working in good faith to assess #COVID19 origins. I have less respect for those trying to oversell working hypotheses as “dispositive evidence.“

 

[Pathfinder]

14. August 2022

WHO declares "Wuhan market NOT origin of COVID-19."

Dear fellow citizens,
as many of you probably already know – in my position as a Member of the European Parliament – I am also a deputy member of its official "COVID-19 Investigating Committee" (COVI).

Already last may, the chair of this committee attended the 75th World Health Assembly (WHA) of the WHO in Geneva.
Now, more than 2 months later, I finally received the proceedings of this meeting.

I was quite astonished to find there - half hidden in a subordinate clause - the clandestine disappearance of another Corona narrative.

So far - according to the official working hypothesis - the origin of COVID-19 is to be assumed on an animal market in the Chinese city of Wuhan. This official assumption has since been disseminated by almost all media worldwide. Scientists and experts, who in the meantime also tried to discuss other possibilities of the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, were quickly branded as conspiracy theorists and excluded from the debate.

Now, however, the minutes available to me indicate that even a high-ranking WHO scientist no longer considers the animal market in Wuhan to be the source of the "pandemic."

Dr. Jaouad Mahjour, former WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean and current Director of Program Management states, according to the minutes, "WHO estimates that the first COVID cases [...] could date back to November 2019, which is why it does not consider the Wuhan market to be the origin of the virus."

That's quite a mouthful, considering the ease with which another building block from the previous Corona narrative is simply disposed of here by official bodies.

But it is also interesting to note that, according to Dr. Mahjour, WHO continues to "see Europe in a strong position to take a leadership role on the future pandemic treaty."

Recently, I stumbled across a graphic on social media that stated, "We need new conspiracy theories - The old ones are all true now."
I don't know about you, dear readers, but after the first laugh, somehow a certain pensiveness remains...

Kind regards,
Yours, Christine Anderson, MEP (AfD)

https://christineanderson.eu/en/who-...n-of-covid-19/

 

[Emily]

The Russian press is using our beloved Dr. Fauci as a propaganda tool to pander to China's Covid origin theory. RT sounds as buffoonish as MSNBC now.

https://www.rt.com/news/560661-fauci-joke-covid-us/

11 Aug, 2022 15:26
US Covid czar cracks joke about pandemic

Anthony Fauci jested that coronavirus emerged not from China, but from his kitchen
Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser joked on Tuesday that it was he who concocted coronavirus in his kitchen, in an apparent attempt to mock the proponents of anti-science rhetoric that is still widespread in the United States.

Dr. Anthony Fauci sat down with his friend and colleague Dr. Larry Corey in the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center campus in Seattle, Washington to discuss the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking to the Covid czar, Corey noted that the event was being held in the state of Washington, “at the epicenter of the initial outbreak.” He was apparently referring to the first case of Covid-19 on US soil, which was brought in by an American who had returned home to the Seattle area after visiting Wuhan, the Chinese city from which the virus apparently originated.

Fauci, however, responded with a joke. “No, I developed the ancestral model strain. I created it.”

“You let it loose,” Cory interjected as the audience broke into laughter.

“I was in my kitchen, and…” Fauci said, making a gesture to suggest he dropped something...

 

[Pathfinder]

ANYWHERE BUT HERE
China now insists the pandemic didn’t start within its borders. Its scientists are publishing a flurry of papers pointing the finger elsewhere

18 AUG 2022 BYJON COHEN
...
CHINA HAS NOT allowed foreign researchers into the country to conduct independent origin studies, but that hasn’t stymied all investigations. On 26 February, a large international team that included Holmes and Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, published two preprints that offered a new analysis of the outbreak’s early days—and pointed directly at the Huanan market. (Science published peer-reviewed versions—here and here—online on 26 July.)

Early reports suggesting some cases were not connected to the market mistakenly identified people as having the disease who did not, the authors contended. They combined spatial analyses of where infected people lived and worked, genetic sequencing of early viral samples, and the location of positive environmental samples and the stalls that sold mammals highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 to conclude the market was the “epicenter” of the pandemic.

But a preprint from China published a day earlier by Gao and many co-authors from CCDC reached a starkly different conclusion. The study analyzed more than 1000 environmental samples from the Huanan market and found SARS-CoV-2 in 73 of them, indicating the virus was in the sewer, on the ground, and in “containers,” some of which Worobey suspects may have been cages that held mammals, based on their location.

In a so-called metagenomic analysis, the researchers also found several samples had a blend of viral and human RNA, “which highly suggests the SARS-CoV-2 might have derived from Homo sapiens” in the market, the authors wrote. In other words, humans didn’t catch SARS-CoV-2 from animals at the market. Instead, people might have brought it to the market from elsewhere.

Again, the researchers mentioned viral traces on imported frozen food and the retrospective studies from other countries as clues to a foreign origin. “Definitely, more work involving international coordination is needed to investigate the real origins of SARS-CoV-2,” they concluded.

Worobey and Holmes were gobsmacked by what the study didn’t say. In a graphic that illustrates the metagenomic analysis, dots show the virus mixed with RNA from several species other than humans, but the preprint does not specify which species. “They ignore all the other animals in there,” Holmes says.

A researcher who claims to have reviewed the manuscript for Nature says it’s not clear whether the omission was intentional or due to sloppy science, but either way, “I said you cannot publish this unless they release the raw data.” The reviewer, who asked not to be named, noted that the paper also includes an analysis of a sample from a defeathering machine at the market that found only human DNA. “Either only humans were defeathered or the analysis was wrong—pick your favorite,” the reviewer says. Gao did not reply to Science’s specific request to discuss the metagenomic data.
...
https://www.science.org/content/art...-papers-chinese-scientists-echoing-party-line

 

[Shiloh]

Source: https://zenodo.org/record/7005332#.YwI4kfHMJa7

August 18, 2022 Journal article Open Access
Unwarranted exclusion of intermediate lineage A/B SARS-CoV-2 genomes is inconsistent with the two spillover hypothesis of the origin of COVID-19

Steven E Massey; Adrian Jones; Daouyu Zhang; Yuri Deigin; Steven C Quay

Pekar et al. (2022) propose that SARS-CoV-2 was a zoonotic spillover that first infected humans in the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China. The basis for their analysis is the hypothesis that there were two spillovers into humans that are recognized by a two-SNV difference, called Lineage A and B, and that the one-SNV intermediate A/B genomes found in numerous human infections are all sequencing errors, implying that the intermediate A/B genomes with a single SNV occurred in unsampled animal hosts. Consequently, confirmation of the existence of an intermediate A/B genome from humans would falsify their hypothesis. Pekar et al. identified and excluded 20 A/B intermediate genomes from their analysis. A variety of exclusion criteria were applied, including low sequencing depth, and the assertion of repeated sequencing errors at lineage defining positions 8782 and 28144. However, data from GISAID shows that most of the genomes were sequenced to high coverage, contradicting these criteria. The decision to exclude the majority of genomes was based on personal communications, with raw data not being available for inspection. Multiple errors and inconsistencies were observed in the exclusion process. Mapping analysis of a genome from Singapore, dismissed due to an arbitrary read depth cutoff, confirms it as a true intermediate, while an intermediate genome from Wuhan was discarded even though it conformed to the cutoff. Puzzlingly, two genomes from Beijing were discarded despite an average sequencing depth of 2175X. Lastly, we identify a new potential intermediate genome from Guangzhou. Consequently, we find that exclusion of many of the intermediate genomes is unfounded, leaving the conclusion of two natural zoonoses unsupported.

 

[etudiant]

Good to see this tendentious piece of research by Pekar et al. getting debunked.
Raccoon dogs are pretty common, if there was a circulating covid strain, it would be surprising to have it only in the wet market specimens.
Yet the search for a purported animal host has come up empty, despite diligent effort, suggesting that there was none, because the virus was a lab product.