Update: WHO team visits P4 lab in Wuhan Institute of Virology - February 2021

[JJackson]

Sharon I do not accept that my post are illogical. If they have become political that is down to the political nature of many of the re-posted articles being of a political and not science or data based nature. If the site is genuinely not going to allow censorship then I am going to continue to counter any biased or ill informed posts that other members make. Post that begin it is possible that, or other wild speculation about lab escapes or nefarious undocumented gain-of-function need to be backed by some kind of evidence or I will counter them. If you want to ban me or censor my posts you can but I hope you will stop others from posting such claims unless they have at least some reasonable logic or data to back them up.

 

[JJackson]

And Emily's post by Shoham isn't? All I am doing is trying to bring some rationality to this debate. The ET comment is just to show anybody can make a ridiculous statement pulled out of thin air based on absolutely no evidence why should one be taken of any more value than the other. Keep the posts rational and I will stop trying to show how absurd and worthless they are.

 

[sharon sanders]

The proper way to refute an opinion that you do not like is to do something like link to the person's resume. Then people can judge for themselves. For instance here is D. Shoham credentials on one internet site: https://idsa.in/profile/DanyShoham

Just because you do not like an opinion does not make it irrational. Stop with the politics and ridiculous deflections.

 

[Pathfinder]

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian's Regular Press Conference on March 19, 2021
...
The Paper: Peter Ben Embarek, head of the WHO origin-tracing mission to China, said in interviews on March 18 that the team hopes the report, now totaling some 280 pages, will be ready for release next week. The "fine-tuning of the text" has centered on scientific issues, while some English-Chinese translation issues were "taking a lot of time," he said. Has China received the text of the report? Do you agree with the content? When is China going to give its assessment and feedback?

Zhao Lijian: I understand the work related to the report has been carried out among Chinese and international experts. On March 16, a WHO administrative official said that the report on origin-tracing would be released next week. We immediately checked with relevant parties. To my knowledge, Chinese experts received an English version of the report from WHO experts on March 17, totaling around 300 pages. As we speak, there is no Chinese version available yet. WHO is still working on the translation. With respect to the specific content of the report, I'm not aware of it. Whether the report will be released next week depends on the discussions between Chinese and foreign experts.

As for the main conclusions, findings and suggestions of this joint mission on origin-tracing, Chinese and WHO experts already made them public at a joint press conference on February 9. I want to stress that origin-tracing is a scientific issue that should be studied by the science community.
...
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/t1862637.shtml

 

[Treyfish]

They covered up SARS, what changed?

 

[Pathfinder]

They covered up SARS, what changed?

The origins of Covid-19: Bats, lab leak or frozen food?

Well over a year since Covid-19 swept through the Chinese city of Wuhan, questions over its origins remain highly sensitive.

? 19 Mar 2021
By Yvonne Murrayin Beijing
...
China insists that it was transparent during the early outbreak, delivering "timely" information to the WHO.

Indeed, the WHO publicly praised China for its openness and cooperation. Yet behind the scenes, the Irishman leading the emergency response complained they weren't getting the information or access they needed.

In leaked recordings obtained by Prime Time, Dr Michael Ryan is heard comparing it to China's cover-up during the SARS outbreak in 2003

"This is exactly the same scenario, endlessly trying to get updates from China about what was going on in Guangdong and then, bang," he said.

"The WHO barely got out of that one with its neck intact given the issues that arose around transparency in southern China," he said. "We do need to shift gears here."

"'There's been no evidence of human-to-human transmission' is not good enough," Dr Ryan is heard saying in the recordings, which were first reported by the AP.

"This would not happen in Congo and did not happen in Congo and other places," he said.

"We need to see the data, we need to be able to determine for ourselves the geographic distribution, the timeline, the epicurve and all of that," he said.
...
https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2...rigins-china-wuhan-bats-lab-leak-frozen-food/

 

[JJackson]

I look forward to reading the report.
I have a serious question for any of you who think this is a lab escape.
The nearest sequence to SARS-CoV-2 is RaTG13 with 96.1% homology. The CoV genome has a little under 30,000 nucleotides. This sequence was generated from guano not live virus. Even if the lab had live virus and there was an accidental escape it would need to have acquired over 1000 NT changes to get from RaTG13 to SARS-CoV-2. Since it emerged there have been well over a 100 million confirmed cases in its new host species and yet there are no sequence that have accumulated 100 changes.
Is it reasonable to assume it acquired 1000+ changes without being detected in humans prior to its identification in Wuhan?
Assuming it did not magically make these changes in a relatively small number of infections prior to detection then it must have acquired them before it left the lab. Under this scenario and the lab's claims it did not perform any gain-of-function experiments you have to assume they are lying which changes this from a accidental lab escape to a deliberate secret set of gain of function experiments followed by an accidental or deliberate release. Is this what you think?
Flu has a higher mutation rate than CoVs but Fouchier & Kawaoka, who were deliberately trying to enhance the airborne transmission of H5N1, by applying extreme selection pressure only managed to make a handful of sequence changes. In which case is it feasible to think WIV, or any other lab, could generate 1000+ changes and hit on human optimised form while keeping all their work secret? Even if they did, and told no one about it, you then have to assume either that they then had their first lab escape or they deliberately released into the community where they lived.
In short how realistic is this, they would have to be far better scientists at genetic manipulation than any one else in the world and be ridiculously careless about lab escapes or wantonly evil. The only other explanation is none of this happened and the lab escape is no more than a conspiracy theory and what happened is what has happened many times in the past and a virus jumped the species barrier and started a zoonotic epidemic.
If there are any FT members who believe this came from a lab I would be genuinely interested in why they think that is plausible.

 

[Treyfish]

It is possible.
China lies.
China blocked investigations.
No primary source found.
Seems perfectly adapted to humans.
Wuhan lab right down the street.
WHO lied.
Seems like a lot of funny business and no solid answers.
Until then, I say leave the possibility open.
Dismissing it outright is your choice.

 

[sharon sanders]

This:

https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/...271#post855271

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

JJackson - Getting everyone involved again in this argument takes them off other work they do here - which is maybe your aim. We have gone over and over this topic with you. link China has had a year to scrub evidence. W.H.O. was never going to find anything there now. Interviewing scientists in China...where their entire families live? Right....very productive - not. Do you think the world does not notice that China picks up people off the streets in Hong Kong and disappears them in the mainland? Everyone sees this. This is a huge Gaslight project.

Like I said several times before - there will be a world court on this pandemic. Follow the money when that happens. All judges, witnesses, experts, etc. should be required to disclose their sources of $$$ back ten years.

 

[JJackson]

It is possible, yes but highly unlikely.
China lies - along with everyone else.
No primary source has been found for Ebola, H1N1(2009) or much else and we have barely begun to look - Ecohealth alliance was trying but they were stopped.
It is very well adapted but that is not particularly unusual either.
There were 3 labs in the area where it was first identified but that could be said of many places big cities but the sequence data analysis posted in the scientific library show it probably started spreading months before. Where a disease is found has a lot more to do with where surveillance is good than where it jumped the species barrier.
WHO lied about what?
The report is not out yet and it is not expected to give solid answers only probable routes.There have been no solid answers to any pandemics and certainly none while the pandemic is still raging.
I am sot saying it is completely impossible just wildly improbable.

 

[bertrand789]

April 26, 2020, 08:03 AM
j'ai une question :
pour r?cup?rer des virus dans un lieu, il faut faire des pr?l?vements ou laisser se promener des lign?es animales con?ues pour cela, du type de celles d?crites dans ces articles:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17222058

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2787736/

La sous question devient : quid de la r?glementation quant ? la d?tention et des usages de ce type de lign?e ?
En management, on utilise parfois des animaux sentinelles, par exemple pour les influenza,on met des poules avec des canards. Les meilleurs animaux sentinelles, pour les coronavirus, ce ne sont pas alors ceux con?us en laboratoire, pour cela et mis ou il faut ?
Je dis aussi cela car visiblement pour aller chercher des virus dans une grotte, vu les publications, cela a ?t? peut efficient et tr?s long. Faitre vivre des animaux sentinelles dans ces lieux, ce n'est pas plus simple ?

 

[Treyfish]

WHO said nothing going on when it was. I?ll play with you later, a Les Paul is calling my name.

 

[Mary Wilson]

U.S. Embassy in Georgia
Fact Sheet: Activity at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

...
1. Illnesses inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV):

• The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses. This raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli?s public claim that there was ?zero infection? among the WIV?s staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses.
• Accidental infections in labs have caused several previous virus outbreaks in China and elsewhere, including a 2004 SARS outbreak in Beijing that infected nine people, killing one.
• The CCP has prevented independent journalists, investigators, and global health authorities from interviewing researchers at the WIV, including those who were ill in the fall of 2019. Any credible inquiry into the origin of the virus must include interviews with these researchers and a full accounting of their previously unreported illness.

2. Research at the WIV:

• Starting in at least 2016 ? and with no indication of a stop prior to the COVID-19 outbreak ? WIV researchers conducted experiments involving RaTG13, the bat coronavirus identified by the WIV in January 2020 as its closest sample to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2% similar). The WIV became a focal point for international coronavirus research after the 2003 SARS outbreak and has since studied animals including mice, bats, and pangolins.

https://ge.usembassy.gov/fact-sheet-activity-at-the-wuhan-institute-of-virology/

 

[Mary Wilson]

US claims Wuhan lab staff had Covid symptoms earlier than first confirmed cases

Gino Spocchia
Monday 18 January 2021 20:54

... The claims come seven months after American researchers pointed to satellite data that showed Wuhan?s hospitals becoming busier some months before China announced a new novel coronavirus.

Researchers at Harvard University said increases in visits to hospitals coincided with a rise in search terms for symptoms such as "cough" and "diarrhoea", and began in August 2019.

Dr John Brownstein, who led the research, told ABC news: "Clearly, there was some level of social disruption taking place well before what was previously identified as the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic?.

?This is all about a growing body of information pointing to something taking place in Wuhan at the time,? he added.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/.../covid-wuhan-lab-symptoms-cases-b1789064.html

 

[sharon sanders]

The thread below is a little more than counting cars in hospital parking lots from a satellite picture:

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

I have turned down many interview requests from major media in the last year so that we can concentrate on our work here without interference, and to avoid getting dragged into various media agendas. In fact, another major media contacted me a couple of weeks ago and I did not grant the interview.

 

[tetano]

Here, we combine retrospective molecular clock analysis in a coalescent framework with a forward compartmental epidemiological model to estimate the timing of the SARS-CoV-2 index case in Hubei province. The inferred dynamics during these unobserved early days of SARS-CoV-2 highlight challenges in detecting and preventing nascent pandemics.
The high extinction rates we inferred suggest that spillover of SARS-CoV-2-like viruses may be frequent, even if pandemics are rare (28). Further, the same dynamics that characterized the establishment of SARS-CoV-2 in Hubei province may have played out all over the world as the virus was repeatedly introduced, but only occasionally took hold (29, 30). The reports of cases in December 2019 and January 2020 in France and California that did not establish sustained transmission fit this pattern (31?33). However, our results suggest that PCR evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater outside of China before November 2019 is unlikely to be valid (34) and the suggestion of international spread in mid-November or early-December 2019 should be viewed with skepticism (35?37), given that our results suggests fewer than 20 people infected with SARS-CoV-2 at this time (table S4 and fig. S11). Our results also refute claims (38) of large numbers of patients requiring hospitalization due to COVID-19 in Hubei province prior to December 2019 (figs. S13 and S14). Nevertheless, SARS-CoV-2 may be detectable should archived wastewater samples or other biomaterials from Hubei province exist from early-to-mid November 2019, and incorporating these types of data in our model could further refine our timing estimates. Moreover, wastewater detection may present the best chance of early detection of future pandemics during the early phase of spread where we estimate very low numbers of infections.
Even though all of the earliest documented cases of COVID-19 were found in Hubei province, we cannot discount the possibility that the index case initially acquired the virus elsewhere. Nonetheless, our dating inference is insensitive to geography. Further, our results suggest that if the virus first emerged in a rural community, it would have needed to migrate to an urban setting to avoid extinction. The lack of reports of COVID-19 elsewhere in China in November and early-December suggest Hubei province is the location where human-to-human transmission chains were first established.
The circumstances surrounding the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in Hubei province remain shrouded. Although SARS-CoV-2 is repeatedly adapting to spread among humans (40, 41), our findings do not reveal whether the virus that first emerged was less fit than the virus that spread throughout China. Nevertheless, the inferred timing of the index case is generally similar in both of these scenarios, because less-fit viruses in our simulations that went extinct tended to do so very quickly. Importantly, it is yet unknown whether the virus emerged directly from its animal reservoir, presumably horseshoe bats (42, 43), or first circulated in and possibly adapted to an intermediate host. Our estimates for the timing of the Hubei index case further distance this individual from the outbreak at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. Finding the animal reservoir, or hypothetical intermediate host, will help to further narrow down the date, location, and circumstances of the original SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans. However, even in the absence of that information, coalescent-based approaches permit us to look back beyond the tMRCA and toward the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there was a pre-tMRCA fuse to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was almost certainly very short. This brief period of time suggests that future pandemics with similar characteristics to the COVID-19 pandemic permit only a narrow window for preemptive intervention.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/03/17/science.abf8003.full

 

[sharon sanders]

I generally agree with the above based on what I found. link I think the human emergence was some time in the summer of 2019 but was not sustained. I think along the Yangtze river shipping route and adjacent areas the initial coronavirus strain spread in starts and stops as ever newer variants learned how to more fully adapt to humans. At this time it was completely possible that pneumonia cases traveled by air out of Shanghai and Wuhan to distant places where transmission either did not occur, or only spread one generation. The Wuhan explosive outbreak was only a matter of time as the virus had been germinating there and becoming more efficient at human spread for months. I think over time more facts will support this hypothesis.

 

[etudiant]

Just to beat a dead horse, I thought this report, although tendentious, raised substantive questions about the WIV and Eco Health.
https://dailycaller.com/2021/04/04/nih-gain-of-function-anthony-fauci-review-board-wuhan-lab/

 

[etudiant]

A Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists report exploring the possible origins of the Civid-19 virus. It does not offer any conclusions, but casts serious doubt on the integrity of Peter Daszak's role.
See: https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/

 

[JJackson]

TWiV 760 https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-760/
Has an hour long discussion with Marion Koopmans, Thea Kolsen Fischer and Peter Daszak, all of whom were members of the WHO origins team, on the phase one study and the work for phase two.