Origin of Covid-19

[Poester 109]

6 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Didn't some lead researchers disappear?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-coronavirus-wuhan-virus-lab-scientist-thought-to-be-patient-zero-still-missing/VA4TIO726U7P36ZQG2WLHDDTNA/

 

Covid 19 coronavirus: Wuhan virus lab scientist thought to be 'patient zero' still missing
news.com.au
18 Jan, 2021 10:46 AM

The fate of a Chinese researcher believed to be the world's first Covid-19 patient remains a mystery despite a year-long search by Western intelligence officials investigating the origins of the pandemic.

Huang Yanling, who worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was one of scores of doctors, scientists, activists and journalists who disappeared during the Chinese Communist Party's suspected cover-up.
 

During the early weeks of the outbreak last February, rumours swirled on Chinese social media that the graduate student was "patient zero", creating a direct link between the controversial lab and the virus outbreak.

Chinese officials quickly stepped in to censor the reports from the internet.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology denied she was patient zero and insisted, without evidence, that she was alive and well elsewhere in the country – while scrubbing her biography and image from its website.

A post purporting to be from Huang later appeared on social media platform WeChat.

"To my teachers and fellow students, how long no speak," the message said. "I am Huang Yanling, still alive. If you receive any email (regarding the Covid-19 rumour), please say it's not true."

Her former boss made a separate post on social media claiming that she had left the institute in 2015, while a Chinese news agency claimed that it had spoken with her new employer but provided no other details.

Missing Chinese researcher Huang Yanling. Photo / news.com.au

A grainy photo of the young woman in her 20s with long hair seen peering out from behind a colleague – salvaged from the website and circulated online – is the only known photo of Huang.

According to the UK's Mail on Sunday, which has also attempted unsuccessfully to track her down, little else is known about her other than that her name is included among the authors of three scientific papers issued by the institute between 2013 and 2015.

The Mail on Sunday says Western governments and intelligence agencies have tried and failed to track down Huang, sparking fears she is either dead or being detained by Chinese authorities.

Huang's disappearance had earlier been cited in a 15-page dossier prepared by Western governments – published by The Sunday Telegraph in May last year – laying out evidence the virus had escaped from the lab.

The Mail on Sunday says its own extensive inquiries within China, including messages to her former colleagues, have also turned up empty.

Despite China's internet censors stamping out discussion of Huang, many social media users continue to speculate about her fate, with some claiming she may have been hastily cremated.

"Everyone on the Chinese internet is searching for Huang," one blogger wrote, according to the Mail on Sunday. "Most believe she is dead."
Wuhan Institute of Virology senior researcher Shi Zhengli. Photo / news.co.au
Wuhan Institute of Virology senior researcher Shi Zhengli. Photo / news.co.au

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Mail on Sunday in a statement that the Chinese Communist Party had prevented investigators from interviewing researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology "including those who were ill in the fall (autumn) of 2019".

"Beijing continues today to withhold vital information that scientists need to protect the world from this deadly virus and the next one," Pompeo said.

It comes as US officials step up their attacks on China over the pandemic, claiming they have explosive new evidence that proves Covid-19 leaked from the lab.

Pompeo earlier demanded the World Health Organisation launch an investigation into the possibility the virus was result of an "accidental" lab leak.

He said US intelligence agencies had found scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in the autumn of 2019 with symptoms consistent with Covid-19, earlier than previously believed.

"This raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli's public claim that there was 'zero infection' among WIV's staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses," Pompeo said.

The first cluster of cases was discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan, with early reports linking the outbreak to a controversial "wet market" that sold and butchered exotic animals in disgusting conditions.

The "patient zero" of the Huanan market had previously been named as a 57-year-old seafood merchant, a woman named Wei Guixian, who first started to feel sick on December 10.

On Thursday, the WHO's team of experts arrived in Wuhan to begin their investigation into the origins of the virus, which has now killed more than two million people globally.

"We need to be very careful about the use of the phrase 'patient zero' which many people indicate as the first initial case," Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's Covid-19 technical lead, told a press conference.

"We may never find who the patient zero was."

Western governments believe that the body has largely ceded control of the investigation to China, leading to fears of a whitewash.

"Unfortunately, this has become a political investigation," Singapore-based Australian virologist Wang Linfa told The New York Times in November. "Whatever they do is symbolic."

Yeah, it’s worse than I originally thought. God China sucks. 

[Bevo 13577]

https://www.heritage.org/public-health/commentary/covid-19s-origin-only-deeper-probe-intelligence-data-will-finally-get-us

COVID-19’s Origin: Only Deeper Probe Into Intelligence Data Will Finally Get Us to Truth
Jun 27, 2023

 

The Biden administration’s release Friday of a declassified nine-page intelligence report does not address COVID-19’s origins as either a Chinese lab leak or a natural occurrence.

It does repeat previous reports showing divisions within the intelligence community on the key issue of COVID-19’s origins.    

Solving the mystery of COVID-19’s origins will depend on the quality of American and allied intelligence, including cables, emails, and original documents.

In their joint statement on the new report, Reps. Brad Wenstrup and Mike Turner, both R-Ohio, said that it was a “step toward  full transparency” and lent “credence” to the lab leak hypothesis, and that congressional investigations would continue.  

And indeed, they must.

Journalists and others have been relying on “off the record” intelligence briefings. However, as The Telegraph of London reports, those have often been dismissed as “unprofessional” and “unscientific.”

Sworn congressional testimony under oath, either in executive session or in public, is the right way forward.  

Sunlight

Among 13 topic areas The Heritage Foundation recommended for congressional oversight, we called upon lawmakers to take a deep dive into China’s coronavirus research, tapping our best intelligence sources in the process. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, especially, has done just that, taking sworn testimony from leading federal officials and emphasizing the sheer gravity of the mission.

For example, in his April testimony before the select subcommittee, David Feith, a former deputy assistant secretary of state, declared: “COVID was not some immaculate infection. It was not spontaneously generated. It came from somewhere. And the details matter. If it emerged naturally, it implies certain things about human interaction with nature, where the risks are sizable enough. (Consider the Spanish Flu of 1918 or the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages.)

“But if COVID-19 emerged from a lab, particularly one conducting “gain of function” virology experiments with technologies invented only a few years ago, then it was akin to a Hiroshima-level event, revealing new and modern high-tech risks to human civilizations and even our species.”  

Independent Revelations

Two recent media revelations give special urgency to the next stage of congressional oversight.

First, a team of independent American journalists claim to have identified the three initial COVID-19 patients as Wuhan lab researchers—Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu—thus lending further credence to the view that the pandemic resulted from a lab leak.

That’s not the first such identification. Huang Yanling, also a Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher, was “rumored” to be “patient zero,” according to an April 2020 State Department memo, but her profile was removed from the institute’s website, and she simply disappeared, thus fueling speculation about foul play.

House and Senate lawmakers in their March resolution ordering the declassification of intelligence data specifically called for identification of Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers who became ill with COVID-19-like symptoms in the earliest stages of the pandemic. The administration’s report, however, names none of the researchers and claims the information concerning these illnesses neither “supports nor refutes” the competing hypotheses of COVID-19’s origins.

Second, Britain’s Daily Mail reported that Zhou Yusen, a top military scientist working on a COVID-19 vaccine, mysteriously “fell” from the roof of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in May 2020. Despite the man’s high-profile reputation as a leading scientist, who quickly launched China’s COVID-19 vaccination program, Chinese officials did not even acknowledge his death, and that has given rise to speculation that Zhou was also the victim of foul play.

Red Response

Any focus on Zhou is also a focus on the specific role of the Chinese military and the communist regime’s response during the early stages of the pandemic.

The best available account thus far is outlined in an exhaustive 301-page report, sponsored by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, and compiled by Dr. Robert Kadlec and a research team for the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

That Senate Republican staff report clearly reveals that COVID-19 infection struck Wuhan residents in late October or early November 2019, and not December of that year, contradicting Beijing’s insistence that the outbreak occurred in December.   

Early Vaccine

Equally important, Zhou was the director of the 5^th Institute at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences—in other words, a top-ranking scientist with the People’s Liberation Army.

According to the Senate staff report, Zhou had been working with Dr. Shi Zhengli (“the Bat Woman”) at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. According to the Senate report: “There is reason to believe that Zhou was engaged in SARS-related coronavirus animal vaccine research with WIV researchers beginning no later than summer or early fall of 2019. Zhou submitted one of the first COVID-19 vaccine patents on February 24, 2020.”  

Consider the timing and the substance of China’s COVID-19 vaccine patent submission. According to the Senate staff report: “The patent includes mouse-derived serological data from vaccine-related experiments, which experts—consulted with during this investigation—assess could not have been completed unless Zhou’s team began work on vaccine development before the known outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in late December 2019.

“The research required both access to the sequence of and the live SARS-CoV-2 virus. Several experts assessed that Zhou likely would have had to start this vaccine-development research no later than November 2019 to achieve the February patent submission date.”

Punishing “Misinformation”

As detailed in the Senate staff report (pp. 64-67), Chinese communist officials soon clamped down on the release of any relevant scientific data and crushed dissent.

On Jan. 1, 2020, they issued an order forbidding medical professionals and scientists from sharing any information related to the COVID-19 outbreak. Two days later, on Jan. 3, they issued an order forbidding the sharing of any information concerning the novel coronavirus without government approval and ordered the destruction of existing biological samples.

That was accompanied by inevitable social media censorship and the detention, disciplining, and humiliation of Chinese medical professionals who communicated truthful information online. Their offense: spreading “rumors.”

While the communist dictatorship was clamping down on data sharing and scientific dissent, prominent Western scientists and their media allies were busy discrediting the lab-leak hypothesis.

In the March 7, 2020, edition of The Lancet, a major professional medical journal, 26 specialists signed a letter of “solidarity” with China’s scientists—at least those in good standing with the regime.

It read, in part: “Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumors, and prejudice that jeopardize our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.”

Among the signatories was Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance of New York, a nongovernmental organization that had secured millions of dollars in American taxpayer funding for coronavirus research, including collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The  Biden administration’s new declassified report does not address the relationship among the conflicted EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and what federal officials knew when exactly about American taxpayer dollars funneled into China’s coronavirus research.

After three years of obfuscation and worse, America and her allies need the truth.  

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal

[Serak The Preparer 3431]

This obviously isn't going to close the book on study into COVID-19 origin but just saw that a paper was published in Cell (a very high quality journal) that supports origin of spread from the meat market. Very importantly, the paper does not state the the market actually is the source.

From a Nature release on the paper: "The study establishes the presence of animals and the virus at the market, although it does not confirm whether the animals themselves were infected with the virus."

I haven't read the paper because even if I did I wouldn't have a clue how to interpret / critique methodology or analysis but figured worth sharing.

[Anastasis 23469]

It came from the lab. 

[bschoolprof 6254]

This "new" paper is by the same team, plus others, that put out the proximal origins paper, reanalyzing the same data, and arguing the same thing.  There's not much new here.  

[Anastasis 23469]

9 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

This "new" paper is by the same team, plus others, that put out the proximal origins paper, reanalyzing the same data, and arguing the same thing.  There's not much new here.  

Yep, just rehashing the same dataset. It's kinda funny to watch. Same team that libeled the racoon dogs. Those mofos can't catch a break. 

Pretty funny to watch the social media cat fights though. Ebright is a total fucking dick, but this shit is funny. One of the chief casualties of the COVID era was confidence in the peer review system. It's been a while coming, but man some shit really came to a head across disciplines. Funny watching it all play out. 

 

 

 

Edited September 25 by Anastasis

[Serak The Preparer 3431]

@Anastasis and @bschoolprof - thanks for the context. I am not in science or academia but have exposure to that through family, disappointing that Cell is just repackaging existing work.

[Anastasis 23469]

7 hours ago, Serak The Preparer said:

@Anastasis and @bschoolprof - thanks for the context. I am not in science or academia but have exposure to that through family, disappointing that Cell is just repackaging existing work.

Dysfunction of the journal industry and the impact on public trust in science might be a fun discussion. 

[Blotto 23511]

17 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Dysfunction of the journal industry and the impact on public trust in science might be a fun discussion. 

At this point in our idiocracy, I'd be surprised if even 5% of the US population has read a single article in its entirety from any scientific journal in the last year. We're much  more comfortable building our opinions by listening to our favorite comedian's podcast (or AM talk radio for the olds). I'm not arguing the dysfunction of the industry, I just dont think it matters as it relates to public trust. 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13585]

Hey! No new conclusive information! 

Quote

 "The study establishes the presence of animals and the virus at the market, although it does not confirm whether the animals themselves were infected with the virus."

Insert into Anastasializer

On 9/24/2024 at 9:01 PM, Anastasis said:

It came from the lab.

 

[Gatorubet 30238]

On 9/24/2024 at 9:01 PM, Anastasis said:

It came from the lab. 

[Anastasis 23469]

14 minutes ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

Hey! No new conclusive information! 

Insert into Anastasializer

 

That post wasn’t a summary of that article, which as discussed adds nothing. 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13585]

Agreed

 

[Serak The Preparer 3431]

1 hour ago, Blotto said:

At this point in our idiocracy, I'd be surprised if even 5% of the US population has read a single article in its entirety from any scientific journal in the last year. We're much  more comfortable building our opinions by listening to our favorite comedian's podcast (or AM talk radio for the olds). I'm not arguing the dysfunction of the industry, I just dont think it matters as it relates to public trust. 

If you are only including academic science journals (e.g., excluding Scientific American, Nat Geo, Popular Mechanics, etc.) then I doubt 5% of the US population (or 5% of adult US population even) has ever read a single article in a given year. It's a pretty small population who even has/had access to most journals, let alone the ability to go through methodology, analysis, etc. Without trying to do more rigorous analysis I would suspect that the percent of the population that has read a journal article / year has not changed significantly over the last century or so.

Now if you broaden to the popular magazines mentioned earlier, undoubtedly there is less readership than there used to be. This is problematic for a number of reasons, but science reporting has never been particularly good, at least in my lifetime.