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

[Pathfinder]

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning’s Regular Press Conference on March 6, 2023
...

CCTV: WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the “WHO continues to call for China to be transparent in sharing data”, adding that continued politicization of the origins research will make the task harder. What is your comment?

Mao Ning: China has actively supported and participated in global science-based COVID origins-tracing since day one. In the meantime, we have been firmly opposed to all forms of political manipulation on this issue. Since COVID-19 hit, China has twice received WHO experts to work together on origins-tracing, which led to a science-based, authoritative joint report and laid a solid foundation for global origins-tracing. After the WHO established the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins on Novel Pathogens (SAGO), China recommended experts to join the group and organized events for Chinese experts to share research findings with the WHO Secretariat and SAGO. China has shared more data and research findings than any other country and contributed the most on origins-tracing.

Tracing the origins of the virus is a matter of science. This study should be and can only be conducted jointly by scientists around the world. For some time, the US has been politicizing, weaponizing and instrumentalizing the issue. The US has been spreading myths such as the “bio weapon” theory and “lab leak” theory without any supporting evidence, which has seriously poisoned the atmosphere for science-based global origins-tracing.

Identifying the origins of COVID is the common responsibility of all countries in the world. Experts of the WHO-China joint mission, after field trips to the lab in Wuhan and in-depth communication with researchers, reached the conclusion that “a laboratory origin of the pandemic was considered to be extremely unlikely”, and recommended that “related traceability research” should be conducted in “countries and regions” worldwide. The US, however, ignored these science-based conclusions and recommendations and kept pressurizing WHO into repeatedly demanding origins-tracing in China. It is quite clear what the US is trying to achieve. While claiming to take origins-tracing seriously, the US has never invited WHO expert groups to the US for joint study, or shared any early data. Instead, it has turned a blind eye to the world’s concerns about US bio-military bases at Fort Detrick and around the world.

Politicizing origins-tracing would only hamper science-based cooperation on the issue, disrupt united effort to combat the pandemic, and undermine global health governance mechanisms. We hope the WHO Secretariat will take a science-based, objective and just position, not let politicization get in the way, and carry out the origins-tracing study in the US, among other countries, and play a positive role in science-based global origins-tracing. We once again urge the US side to immediately stop political manipulation on this issue, respond to the world’s legitimate concerns soon, voluntarily share the data of suspected early cases in the US with the WHO, disclose information about its bio-labs at Fort Detrick and around the world, and give people of the world the truth they deserve.
...
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/202303/t20230307_11036582.html

 

[sharon sanders]

bump this

 

[Pathfinder]

Ex-CDC chief: Fauci ‘sidelined’ me from COVID debate for backing lab leak theory

By Josh Christenson
March 8, 2023 11:01am

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield told lawmakers Wednesday that Dr. Anthony Fauci “sidelined” him from internal debates about the origin of COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic, saying the former White House chief medical adviser did not appreciate Redfield’s support for the so-called “lab leak theory.”

“This was an a priori decision that there’s one point of view that we’re going to put out there, and anyone who doesn’t agree with it is going to be sidelined,” Redfield said at a hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. “And as I say, I was only the CDC director, and I was sidelined.”

Redfield, 71, told Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) that his support for the theory that the coronavirus accidentally emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China — rather than jumping from animals to humans — likely prompted his exclusion from high-level discussions of the outbreak.

“I think I made it very clear in January [2020] to all of them why we had to aggressively pursue this,” he said. “And I let them know as a virologist that I didn’t see that this was anything like SARS or MERS. … And they knew that was how I was thinking.”

Redfield added that he was not aware that Fauci and then-National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins had convened a conference call on Feb. 1, 2020 to discuss the worldwide outbreak until internal emails were published by the Washington Post and Buzzfeed News in June 2021.
...

https://nypost.com/2023/03/08/former-nyt-editor-slams-fauci-for-discrediting-lab-leak/

 

[Pathfinder]

Press ReleasePublished: Mar 8, 2023COVID Origins Hearing Wrap Up: Facts, Science, Evidence Point to a Wuhan Lab Leak


WASHINGTON—The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic held a hearing on “Investigating the Origins of COVID-19” to gather facts about the origination of the virus that has claimed nearly seven million lives globally. At the hearing, several of the witnesses pointed to how the science, facts, and evidence point to a lab leak in Wuhan.

Key Hearing Takeaways

Knowing the origin of COVID-19 is fundamental to helping predict and prevent future pandemics.

Select Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup opened the hearing by emphasizing how knowing the origin of the virus is essential to helping predict and prevent future pandemics, protecting health and national security, and preparing the United States for the future. He pledged that the Select Subcommittee will thoroughly, responsibly, and honestly investigate the origin of COVID-19.

Dr. Jamie Metzl, Ph.D., senior fellow at the Atlantic Council said in an opening statement, “If we do not get to the bottom of what went wrong with the COVID-19 pandemic, if we fail in our efforts to fearlessly understand all shortcomings and shore up the vulnerabilities this crisis has so clearly exposed, the victims of the next pandemic, our children and grandchildren, will ask us why we failed to protect when we knew what was at stake and had the chance.”

Mounting evidence continues to show that COVID-19 may have originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), testified how science indicates COVID-19 infections were likely the result of an accidental lab leak in Wuhan. His conclusion is based on the biology of the virus itself and unusual actions in and around Wuhan in 2019, including gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

Nicholas Wade—the former science and health editor at the New York Times, and former editor of Science and Nature—testified how Drs. Fauci and Collins used unverified data to dismiss the lab leak theory in favor of natural transmission.

Jamie Metzl testified how China’s government destroyed samples, hid records, imprisoned Chinese journalists, prevented Chinese scientists from saying or writing anything on pandemic origins without prior government approval, actively spread misinformation, and prevented an evidence-based investigation.

The mainstream media downplayed—and even denied—the scientific theory that COVID-19 emerged from the WIV.

Nicholas Wade testified about the campaign to discredit the lab leak theory. He pointed out that scientists kept in line with the natural origin camp led by Drs. Fauci and Collins because of their dependence on government grants and that the media failed to challenge the forced narrative.

All witnesses agreed that the possibility of COVID-19 originating from a lab is not a conspiracy theory.

Member Highlights

Subcommittee Chairman Dr. Wenstrup (R-Ohio.) asked witnesses whether it is critical to investigate the origin of COVID-19. All witnesses answered yes. Chairman Wenstrup also raised concern about gain-of-function research, which Dr. Redfield defined during the hearing as altering a pathogen to increase either transmissibility or pathogenicity.

Subcommittee Chairman Wenstrup: “In your expert opinion was the Wuhan Institute conducting gain-of-function research on a batch of coronaviruses?”

Dr. Redfield: “Absolutely.”



Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) noted that after raising concerns to experts and the World Health Organization that COVID-19 may have originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, and urging Dr. Fauci to investigate the origins of the pandemic, Dr. Redfield was excluded from calls related to the origins of the pandemic.

Rep. Malliotakis: “Why do you think you were excluded from those calls?”

Dr. Redfield: “It was told to me that they wanted a single narrative and that I obviously had a different point of view.”

Dr. Redfield added: “If you really want to be truthful, it’s antithetical to science. Science has debate, and they squashed any debate.”

Scientists, including Dr. Fauci, then drafted a paper arguing COVID-19’s proximal origins to animals at a wet market.

Rep. Malliotakis: “Do you think that this paper does hide the truth?”

Dr. Redfield: “I think it’s an inaccurate paper that basically was part of a narrative that they were creating.”

Rep. Malliotakis also warned that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) may have been funding gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the WIV.

Rep. Malliotakis: “Is it likely that American tax dollars funded the gain-of-function research that created this virus?”

Dr. Redfield: I think it did, not only from NIH, but from the State Department, USAID and DOD.”



Rep. Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), who has expertise publishing in peer-reviewed scientific journals, asked why the scientific community dangerously suppressed evidence that COVID-19 may have originated from a lab.

“There is, as you said Dr. Metzl, extraordinary circumstantial evidence that this came from a lab.

“I don’t know why the authors didn’t want to state this, they did not want to have the scientific conversation and dialogue, why they wanted to obfuscate and suppress the truth, or even have a debate about the origins of COVID-19.

“Was it for personal financial gain? Was it to hide U.S. financial interest into the Wuhan Institute of Virology indirectly? Was it to suppress the revelation that there was perhaps gain-of-function research that had been prohibited in the United States? Or were they concerned that a conspiracy would develop that it was bioterrorism?

“I would state that their suppression and obfuscation has led to the exact mistrust and conspiracy theories that they may have tried to avoid.”



Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Colo.) and Dr. Redfield discussed unusual actions at the WIV in September 2019.

Rep. Lesko: “Do you believe we can have certainty that the virus did not come from the Wuhan lab and that U.S. funding was not used for coronavirus research?”

Dr. Redfield: “Absolutely we cannot do that. It’s now declassified now, but in September 2019, three things happened in that lab. One, they deleted the sequences. That is highly irregular—researchers don’t usually like to do that. Second, they commanded the command and control of the lab from civilian control to military control. Highly unusual. And the third thing they did, which I think is really telling, is they let a contractor re-do the ventilation system in that laboratory. There is strong evidence there was a significant event in that laboratory in September 2019.”



Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) warned that the media downplayed, discredited, and silenced voices of experts sounding the alarm that COVID-19 may have originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Chairman Comer: “Would you agree that the scientific establishment used the media to downplay the lab leak theory?”

Mr. Wade: “I think the media was used in this particular campaign to establish the natural origin theory.

“The scientific community is very afraid to speak up on political issues. I think the reason is that government grants are handed out through the system of peer-reviewed committees. You don’t want any single scientist on your peer-review committee to vote against, because you won’t get your grant – it’s so competitive. Therefore, scientists are very reluctant to say anything that’s politically divisive or turn other scientists off against them. This means that they cannot be relied upon in the way that we would like them to be independent and forthright and call it as they see it.”

Comer: “Was there science available to make such an unequivocal statement against the possibility of a lab leak that early on in February of 2020?”

Witnesses Dr. Metzl, Mr. Wade, and Dr. Redfield all answered, “No.”

Comer: “Is the possibility COVID-19 leaked from a lab a conspiracy theory?”

Witnesses answered, “No.”



https://oversight.house.gov/release...-science-evidence-point-to-a-wuhan-lab-leak/

 

[Pathfinder]

House votes to declassify info about origins of COVID-19

By LISA MASCARO
an hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted unanimously Friday to declassify U.S. intelligence information about the origins of COVID-19, a sweeping show of bipartisan support near the third anniversary of the start of the deadly pandemic.

The 419-0 vote was final congressional approval of the bill, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk. It’s unclear whether the president will sign the measure into law, and the White House said the matter was under review.
...
If signed into law, the measure would require within 90 days the declassification of “any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the Coronavirus Disease.”

That includes information about research and other activities at the lab and whether any researchers grew ill.

https://apnews.com/article/covid-origins-china-wuhan-intelligence-7018f8016c7346cfaa8193933ec10063

 

[tetano]

mBIO. Journal of Virology, mSphere

A critical analysis of the evidence for the SARS-CoV-2 origin hypotheses

Authors: James C. Alwine, Arturo Casadevall , Lynn W. Enquist , Felicia D. Goodrum , Michael J. Imperiale





Conclusions drawn from existing evidence: Scientific conclusions are based on likelihood given the scientific data, and conclusions can change as new data are obtained. Based on the scientific data collected in last 3 years by virologists worldwide, hypotheses 1 and 2 are unlikely. Hypotheses 3 and 4 cannot be ruled out by existing evidence. Since hypothesis 1 and 2 support the lab leak theory and hypotheses 3 and 4 are consistent with a zoonotic origin, the lab leak and zoonotic origin explanations are not equally probable, and the available evidence favors the latter. Further insight into CoV in animals at the animal-human interface requires additional surveillance of circulating virus sequences from animals. There is ample precedent for the seeding of pandemics and more geographically limited outbreaks from non-human species. Common-cold CoV, SARS-CoV, Ebola virus, HIV, influenza A virus, mpox virus, and others all have zoonotic origins. SARS-CoV-2 is the ninth documented coronavirus to enter the human population. The best existing scientific evidence supports a direct zoonotic origin. As new evidence continues to emerge from scientific studies or other investigation, our understanding of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 will continue to evolve. Nevertheless, it is possible that its origin may never be known with certainty.

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.00583-23

 

[sharon sanders]

I completely disagree with the above paper. 1) What is the crossover anima in the zoonotic model? To date - after 3 years no animal has been proven to be the crossover animal. 2) How is it that SARS-Cov-2 had immediate efficient and sustained transmission among cats, dogs, and humans? Did some unidentified crossover animal contaminate them all concurrently? I saw no signs of cat or dog die-offs in China before the pandemic. However, dogs are used as lab animals. It is widely known and proven that the Wuhan labs were experimenting with SARS for years. I am not suggesting dogs as a medium of a lab escape, I am simply using practical logic employing known facts.

The current H5N1 global outbreak is typical of zoonosis development. It takes years to become transmissible to humans and during the progression you can track the various species as they become affected. Die-offs are common. Compare this situation to the COVID-19 pandemic which was a sudden human adapted pathogen.

If anything, the evidence to date supports an argument for a lab escape over a zoonosis event.

 

[JJackson]

I do however agree with the findings. Re Sharon's points
1) If there was an intermediate host it need only have been a temporary stopover from a bat to an animal, which may not have been well adapted to the virus, but did have contact with humans e.g. a cat that ate a bat. It would not have had to remain circulating in that host for long, and if we do find virus or antibodies now, it will be too late to know if it caught it from a human or vice versa.
2) The virus has shown ample evidence that it is happy infecting a wide range of host animals, with little need of major changes to its genome. Once it was spreading through the human population, any animals with frequent close contacts are at risk of being infected. Cats and dogs are not efficient transmitters of the virus, but will catch it if given high enough exposure. Ferrets, mink and white tailed deer, like humans, are capable of sustaining extended transmission chains and maintaining their own independently evolving variants.
I do not think you can compare Sars-Cov-2 to H5N1, in its current form, a better comparison would be H1N1(2009) which was well enough adapted to quickly spread H2H. The only reason we could trace it back to its origins was due to it coming from pigs, which are a valuable human resource with a history of human/swine influenza crossover, and consequently widely sequenced for viral infection. Bats, on the other hand, had very few coronavirus sequences in the database even after SARS1 and almost none before.
Pandemics come from zoonosis and while there may be some low level of transmission in a few hosts prior to it adapting to a point of efficient H2H once the pandemic gets underway finding, and getting sequences from, those few among the thousands is nigh on impossible. How do you find them and with the viral replication phase only lasting a week or so the best you can hope for is serology which will not distinguish between the pandemic form and any prior intermediary.

 

[sharon sanders]

A virus "temporary stopover" from a bat that concurrently became efficient and sustained in three species (cat, dog, human) in the exact same time frame - in the first few weeks of the pandemic? Another convenient coincidence. There is no crossover animal discovered after three years because there is none.

 

[JJackson]

Sharon Re.
"A virus "temporary stopover" from a bat that concurrently became efficient and sustained in three species (cat, dog, human) in the exact same time frame - in the first few weeks of the pandemic?"
I have seen no evidence to suggest that Sars-Cov-2 ever became sustained in dogs or cats. Once it had infected many humans some companion animals caught it from them, but they have not become a reservoir species to date.

"There is no crossover animal discovered after three years because there is none." A bold assertion but you have no evidence to back it up.
"There was no lab escape because after three years there is no evidence of one" an equally bold assertion but as proving a negative is going to be a problem all we have is our opinions. I would go with 99% zoonosis less than 1% lab leak - may be someone will find a smoking gun, that shows one of us to be right and the other wrong, but I would not hold my breath after this long.

 

[Pathfinder]

Dr. Fauci maintains COVID outbreak caused by ‘natural occurrence’

By Jesse O’Neill
March 12, 2023 3:34pm
...
The 82-year-old now said he was still keeping a “completely open mind” to the origin of the virus, while explaining how a lab leak still could be considered a “natural occurrence.”

“A lab leak could be that someone was out in the wild, maybe looking for different types of viruses in bats, got infected, went into a lab and was being studied in the lab and then came out of the lab,” Fauci told anchor Jim Acosta.

“But if that’s the definition of a lab leak Jim, then that’s still a natural occurrence.”

Fauci said it could also be possible that a lab leak occurred after someone took a virus from the environment and manipulated it before accidentally infecting another person, kickstarting the outbreak, which has killed nearly seven million people worldwide.

He also made a point of noting that no investigative agency tasked with investigating the origins of the virus by President Biden in 2021 found evidence of nefarious activity at the lab.

“All of the intelligence agencies agree unanimously that this was not engineered. Namely, they didn’t deliberately do this to make a bioweapon,” Fauci said.
...
https://nypost.com/2023/03/12/dr-anthony-fauci-maintains-covid-19-outbreak-was-natural-occurrence/

 

[sharon sanders]

You switch the topic to confuse. I am talking about the fact that cats, dogs, and humans, were all able to contract and transmit COVID-19 immediately upon the discovery of the pandemic. This was unusual and of note. It means that the genetic development of this disease was already refined in these three species - at the exact same time frame. Nothing changes this fact.

It is up to the zoonosis believers to provide a crossover animal to prove their point. There is none after 3 years of investigations. Nothing changes this fact.

 

[JJackson]

I do not think it is I who is switching the topic or trying to confuse anyone.
The first case of infection in a dog or cat, that I know of, was in a dog in HK in April 2020 at which time there had been about 1.2M human cases. The dog's owner was a COVID case. If you have earlier cases let me know but otherwise it seems humans were the only reservoir and companions animals occasionally caught it from them but were not good vectors. Many other animals are equally susceptible, but until we started spreading it around the globe had no route to catch it.
Zoonosis does not require an intermediate host, it can be either direct from reservoir or via one or more intermediaries. In this case we know thousands of people had been infected by sarbecov in China prior to 2019, by serology, but failed to develop efficient h2h. There is no way of knowing after the event where they got it but the testing was performed in areas with a high bat population.

 

[Pathfinder]

CBS MORNINGS

U.S. government agencies may have been double billed for projects in Wuhan, China, records indicate; probe launched

BY CATHERINE HERRIDGE, ANALISA NOVAK
MARCH 13, 2023 / 9:54 AM / CBS NEWS
...
"What I've found so far is evidence that points to double billing, potential theft of government funds. It is concerning, especially since it involves dangerous pathogens and risky research," said Diane Cutler, a former federal investigator with over two decades of experience combating white-collar crime and healthcare fraud.
...
Cutler said she has viewed over 50,000 documents, and that the U.S. government may have made duplicate payments for possible medical supplies, equipment, travel and salaries.

Sources told CBS News that tens of millions of dollars could be involved.

Sources familiar with the grant records did not dispute CBS News' reporting.

A spokesperson for USAID declined to comment. A USAID inspector general spokesperson declined to comment "on the existence of a specific open investigation." The press office for NIH did not respond to CBS News' questions.
...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-gove...ndicate-probe/

 

[sharon sanders]

The 1st documented case in a dog or cat was on February 28, 2020 (dog) at which point the Hong Kong CHP advised all pet owners to wash their hands after touching their pets. This date was only 60 days after the 1st documented human cases.. And fyi - Hong Kong was only reporting a total of 94 human cases at this time not a million...omg. You know for a human to pass an infection to a dog that dog must have receptors developed to accept that contagion. Obviously dogs in Hong Kong, in the early days of the pandemic, already had the genetic capability to process a COVID-19 infection transmitted by a human to them. Just stop....

https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum...ion-of-low-level-of-covid-19-virus-in-pet-dog , https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202002/28/P2020022800752.htm

 

[JJackson]

You knew of an earlier case, so there were 79,000 human cases before the first pet, but it does not materially change anything. I do not see the fact that animals, other than humans can catch Sars-Cov-2 which is well known, has any relevance to the debate on its origins. Why do you think it is evidence of it being a lab escape rather than a zoonotic emergence? Influenza can also spill over from birds into other animals, but no one is arguing that it escaped from a lab.
When you refer to a lab escape what do you think happened, that it is a natural bat virus that escaped containment, that it is an artificially modified virus or something else. Why would any of these behave differently to a zoonotic infection, and how could you tell them apart?

 

[sharon sanders]

You know that a natural spillover evolution takes time as a virus works its way through species. This did not happen with COVID-19. Cats, dogs, humans were immediately infectious to each other. If the COVID-19 pandemic started in December of 2019 then there was no time for a naturally occurring spillover process for all those species to be able to interspecies transmit within 60 ish days. But you know this. I am not going to repeat myself over and over. This is not the only evidence of a lab escape but it is compelling.

I am not going answer any of your further deflection challenge questions. Take a look at the published research from the two labs in Wuhan for yourself to get an idea of what was going on there.

 

[sharon sanders]

From post #730 above:



tetano


March 11, 2023, 04:16 AM
mBIO. Journal of Virology, mSphere

A critical analysis of the evidence for the SARS-CoV-2 origin hypotheses

Authors: James C. Alwine, Arturo Casadevall , Lynn W. Enquist , Felicia D. Goodrum , Michael J. Imperiale





Conclusions drawn from existing evidence: Scientific conclusions are based on likelihood given the scientific data, and conclusions can change as new data are obtained. Based on the scientific data collected in last 3 years by virologists worldwide, hypotheses 1 and 2 are unlikely. Hypotheses 3 and 4 cannot be ruled out by existing evidence. Since hypothesis 1 and 2 support the lab leak theory and hypotheses 3 and 4 are consistent with a zoonotic origin, the lab leak and zoonotic origin explanations are not equally probable, and the available evidence favors the latter. Further insight into CoV in animals at the animal-human interface requires additional surveillance of circulating virus sequences from animals. There is ample precedent for the seeding of pandemics and more geographically limited outbreaks from non-human species. Common-cold CoV, SARS-CoV, Ebola virus, HIV, influenza A virus, mpox virus, and others all have zoonotic origins. SARS-CoV-2 is the ninth documented coronavirus to enter the human population. The best existing scientific evidence supports a direct zoonotic origin. As new evidence continues to emerge from scientific studies or other investigation, our understanding of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 will continue to evolve. Nevertheless, it is possible that its origin may never be known with certainty.

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.00583-23

---

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• 
  #730.1
  sharon sanders commented
  March 11, 2023, 06:54 AM
  I completely disagree with the above paper. 1) What is the crossover anima in the zoonotic model? To date - after 3 years no animal has been proven to be the crossover animal. 2) How is it that SARS-Cov-2 had immediate efficient and sustained transmission among cats, dogs, and humans? Did some unidentified crossover animal contaminate them all concurrently? I saw no signs of cat or dog die-offs in China before the pandemic. However, dogs are used as lab animals. It is widely known and proven that the Wuhan labs were experimenting with SARS for years. I am not suggesting dogs as a medium of a lab escape, I am simply using practical logic employing known facts.
  
  The current H5N1 global outbreak is typical of zoonosis development. It takes years to become transmissible to humans and during the progression you can track the various species as they become affected. Die-offs are common. Compare this situation to the COVID-19 pandemic which was a sudden human adapted pathogen.
  
  If anything, the evidence to date supports an argument for a lab escape over a zoonosis event.
  • Edit
  • Flag
  
  #730.2
  JJackson commented
  March 11, 2023, 10:06 AM
  I do however agree with the findings. Re Sharon's points
  1) If there was an intermediate host it need only have been a temporary stopover from a bat to an animal, which may not have been well adapted to the virus, but did have contact with humans e.g. a cat that ate a bat. It would not have had to remain circulating in that host for long, and if we do find virus or antibodies now, it will be too late to know if it caught it from a human or vice versa.
  2) The virus has shown ample evidence that it is happy infecting a wide range of host animals, with little need of major changes to its genome. Once it was spreading through the human population, any animals with frequent close contacts are at risk of being infected. Cats and dogs are not efficient transmitters of the virus, but will catch it if given high enough exposure. Ferrets, mink and white tailed deer, like humans, are capable of sustaining extended transmission chains and maintaining their own independently evolving variants.
  I do not think you can compare Sars-Cov-2 to H5N1, in its current form, a better comparison would be H1N1(2009) which was well enough adapted to quickly spread H2H. The only reason we could trace it back to its origins was due to it coming from pigs, which are a valuable human resource with a history of human/swine influenza crossover, and consequently widely sequenced for viral infection. Bats, on the other hand, had very few coronavirus sequences in the database even after SARS1 and almost none before.
  Pandemics come from zoonosis and while there may be some low level of transmission in a few hosts prior to it adapting to a point of efficient H2H once the pandemic gets underway finding, and getting sequences from, those few among the thousands is nigh on impossible. How do you find them and with the viral replication phase only lasting a week or so the best you can hope for is serology which will not distinguish between the pandemic form and any prior intermediary.
  • Edit
  • Flag
• 
  #730.3
  sharon sanders commented
  March 11, 2023, 07:14 PM
  A virus "temporary stopover" from a bat that concurrently became efficient and sustained in three species (cat, dog, human) in the exact same time frame - in the first few weeks of the pandemic? Another convenient coincidence. There is no crossover animal discovered after three years because there is none.
  • Edit
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  #730.4
  JJackson commented
  March 12, 2023, 09:42 AM
  Sharon Re.
  "A virus "temporary stopover" from a bat that concurrently became efficient and sustained in three species (cat, dog, human) in the exact same time frame - in the first few weeks of the pandemic?"
  I have seen no evidence to suggest that Sars-Cov-2 ever became sustained in dogs or cats. Once it had infected many humans some companion animals caught it from them, but they have not become a reservoir species to date.
  
  "There is no crossover animal discovered after three years because there is none." A bold assertion but you have no evidence to back it up.
  "There was no lab escape because after three years there is no evidence of one" an equally bold assertion but as proving a negative is going to be a problem all we have is our opinions. I would go with 99% zoonosis less than 1% lab leak - may be someone will find a smoking gun, that shows one of us to be right and the other wrong, but I would not hold my breath after this long.
  • Edit
  • Flag
• 
  #730.5
  sharon sanders commented
  March 13, 2023, 10:34 PM
  You switch the topic to confuse. I am talking about the fact that cats, dogs, and humans, were all able to contract and transmit COVID-19 immediately upon the discovery of the pandemic. This was unusual and of note. It means that the genetic development of this disease was already refined in these three species - at the exact same time frame. Nothing changes this fact.
  
  It is up to the zoonosis believers to provide a crossover animal to prove their point. There is none after 3 years of investigations. Nothing changes this fact.
  • Edit
  • Flag
  
  #730.6
  JJackson commented
  March 14, 2023, 03:26 PM
  I do not think it is I who is switching the topic or trying to confuse anyone.
  The first case of infection in a dog or cat, that I know of, was in a dog in HK in April 2020 at which time there had been about 1.2M human cases. The dog's owner was a COVID case. If you have earlier cases let me know but otherwise it seems humans were the only reservoir and companions animals occasionally caught it from them but were not good vectors. Many other animals are equally susceptible, but until we started spreading it around the globe had no route to catch it.
  Zoonosis does not require an intermediate host, it can be either direct from reservoir or via one or more intermediaries. In this case we know thousands of people had been infected by sarbecov in China prior to 2019, by serology, but failed to develop efficient h2h. There is no way of knowing after the event where they got it but the testing was performed in areas with a high bat population.
  • Edit
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  #730.7
  sharon sanders commented
  Yesterday, 11:09 AM
  The 1st documented case in a dog or cat was on February 28, 2020 (dog) at which point the Hong Kong CHP advised all pet owners to wash their hands after touching their pets. This date was only 60 days after the 1st documented human cases.. And fyi - Hong Kong was only reporting a total of 94 human cases at this time not a million...omg. You know for a human to pass an infection to a dog that dog must have receptors developed to accept that contagion. Obviously dogs in Hong Kong, in the early days of the pandemic, already had the genetic capability to process a COVID-19 infection transmitted by a human to them. Just stop....
  
  https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/...rus-in-pet-dog , https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/...0022800752.htm
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  #730.8
  JJackson commented
  Yesterday, 12:57 PM
  You knew of an earlier case, so there were 79,000 human cases before the first pet, but it does not materially change anything. I do not see the fact that animals, other than humans can catch Sars-Cov-2 which is well known, has any relevance to the debate on its origins. Why do you think it is evidence of it being a lab escape rather than a zoonotic emergence? Influenza can also spill over from birds into other animals, but no one is arguing that it escaped from a lab.
  When you refer to a lab escape what do you think happened, that it is a natural bat virus that escaped containment, that it is an artificially modified virus or something else. Why would any of these behave differently to a zoonotic infection, and how could you tell them apart?
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  #730.9
  sharon sanders commented
  Today, 11:19 AM
  You know that a natural spillover evolution takes time as a virus works its way through species. This did not happen with COVID-19. Cats, dogs, humans were immediately infectious to each other. If the COVID-19 pandemic started in December of 2019 then there was no time for a naturally occurring spillover process for all those species to be able to interspecies transmit within 60 ish days. But you know this. I am not going to repeat myself over and over. This is not the only evidence of a lab escape but it is compelling.
  
  I am not going answer any of your further deflection challenge questions. Take a look at the published research from the two labs in Wuhan for yourself to get an idea of what was going on there.

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And....in another amazing coincidence genetic samples from the Wuhan market environment were deposited in GISAID late last week (March 11?) and presto! bingo! we may have a crossover animal...and it is a canine!

China CDC had these swabs for over three years and deposited the data late last week?



The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic
March 16, 2023

A new analysis of genetic samples from China appears to link the pandemic’s origin to raccoon dogs.
By Katherine J. Wu

snip

The genetic sequences were pulled out of swabs taken in and near market stalls around the pandemic’s start. They represent the first bits of raw data that researchers outside of China’s academic institutions and their direct collaborators have had access to. Late last week, the data were quietly posted by researchers affiliated with the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, on an open-access genomic database called GISAID. By almost pure happenstance, scientists in Europe, North America, and Australia spotted the sequences, downloaded them, and began an analysis.


https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...b-leak/673390/


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ɪᴀɴ ᴍ. ᴍᴀᴄᴋᴀʏ, ᴘʜᴅ

@MackayIM"Three years into the coronavirus pandemic, researchers have found genetic evidence that appears to link the outbreak’s origin to a wild animal,@KatherineJWureports."

- evidence of raccoon dog & #SARSCoV2 genetic material in the same space, no more.

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"The market occupied over 50,000 m[SUP]2[/SUP] (12 acres)[SUP][8][/SUP] and had over 1,000 tenants.[SUP][9][/SUP] It is reported to have been the largest seafood wholesale market in Central China,[SUP][8][/SUP] with wild animals sold in its western zone.[SUP][10][/SUP] The market was located in the newer part of the city, near shops and apartment blocks,[SUP][11][/SUP] about 800 meters (2,600 ft) from Hankou railway station,[SUP][12][/SUP] and close to the Wuhan Center for Disease Control.[SUP][13][/SUP]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huanan...olesale_Market

 

[Pathfinder]

Unearthed genetic sequences from China market may point to animal origin of COVID-19

French scientist finds previously undisclosed data from Chinese research team

16 MAR 202310:00 PMBYJON COHEN

A scientific sleuth in France has identified previously undisclosed genetic data from a food market in Wuhan, China, that she and colleagues say support the theory that coronavirus-infected animals there triggered the COVID-19 pandemic. Several of the researchers presented their findings on Tuesday to the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), an expert group convened last year by the World Health Organization (WHO).
...
Florence Débarre, a theoretician who specializes in evolutionary biology and works at CNRS, the French national research agency, unearthed the data, which consist of genetic sequences posted in GISAID, a virology database, by Chinese researchers. The Chinese team had collected environmental samples from the Huanan Seafood Market, which was connected to a cluster of early COVID-19 cases and despite its name also sold a variety of mammals for food. Since Débarre spotted the sequences, GISAID has removed them, noting that this was at the request of the submitter.

Given that the mystery of SARS-CoV-2’s origin has been a matter of intense global interest and divisive debate, the data’s discovery and subsequent disappearance will certainly raise questions about why the Chinese team—which includes the former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), George Gao—did not make the sequences public earlier. Contacted by Science, Gao said the sequences are “[n]othing new. It had been known there was illegal animal dealing and this is why the market was immediately shut down.”
...
Gao’s team used swabs to collect environmental samples from many of the stalls of the Huanan market between 1 January 2020, the day it was shut down, and 2 March 2020. The group reported last year that some of the samples that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 also had human genetic material, but no DNA from other animals. The team concluded in a preprint posted on Research Square on 25 February 2022 that this “highly suggests” humans brought the virus to the market; Gao and his co-authors said this meant the marketplace was not the origin of the pandemic but simply amplified early spread of SARS-CoV-2.
...
The study has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and Science first reported last year that some scientists questioned why a graph in the preprint seemed to show that animal sequences had been found in the market’s virus-positive environment samples, but offered no data of their identity. The analysis presented to the WHO panel this week now suggests that some coronavirus-positive samples collected contained DNA or RNA from raccoon dogs, civets, and other mammals now known to be highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2.

Débarre says on 4 March she “randomly” came across the previously unknown sequence data while doing other research on GISAID. It took her 5 days to recognize the extent of data available and its potential importance.
...
https://www.science.org/content/article/covid-19-origins-missing-sequences

 

[Pathfinder]

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing – 17 March 2023

17 March 2023

...
Last Sunday, WHO was made aware of data published on the GISAID database in late January, and taken down again recently.

The data, from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, relates to samples taken at the Huanan market in Wuhan, in 2020.

While it was online, scientists from a number of countries downloaded the data and analysed it.

As soon as we became aware of this data, we contacted the Chinese CDC and urged them to share it with WHO and the international scientific community so it can be analysed.

We also convened the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens, or SAGO, which met on Tuesday.

We asked researchers from the Chinese CDC and the international group of scientists to present their analyses of the data to SAGO.

These data do not provide a definitive answer to the question of how the pandemic began, but every piece of data is important in moving us closer to that answer.

And every piece of data relating to studying the origins of COVID-19, needs to be shared with the international community immediately.

These data could have – and should have – been shared three years ago.

We continue to call on China to be transparent in sharing data, and to conduct the necessary investigations and share the results.

Understanding how the pandemic began remains both a moral and scientific imperative.
...
https://www.who.int/director-genera...remarks-at-the-media-briefing---17-march-2023