There Are Strange Things Done In The Midnight Sun
Peter Daszak (right), Thea Fischer (left), and other members of the WHO team investigating the origins of covid-19 arrive at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China's central Hubei province. |
"We would ask that we separate the science from the politics, and let us get on with finding the answers that we need in a proper, positive atmosphere.""This whole process is being poisoned by politics."WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan"The technical team will prepare a proposal for the next studies that will need to be carried out and will present that to the director-general.""He will then work with member states about the next steps. There is no timeline."WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib"[The first phase of the WHO expert panel study was] insufficient and inconclusive. There is a need for a] timely, transparent, evidence-based and expert-led Phase 2 study, including in the People's Republic of China.""[There is a need for access for independent experts to] complete, original data and samples [relevant to the source of the virus and early stages of the outbreak].""We appreciate the WHO's stated commitment to move forward with Phase 2 of the COVID-19 origins study, and look forward to an update from Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus."U.S. Diplomatic Mission, Geneva
Workers in protective gear carry a bag containing a giant salamander that was reported to have escaped from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Monday, Jan. 27, 2020. (Chinatopix via AP) |
When
the mysterious appearance of a strange pneumonia was discovered in
patients admitted to hospitals in Wuhan, China in December of 2019, and
soon afterward the virus began spreading outside China's borders,
Beijing took exception to the virus, identified as a new coronavirus
called SARS-CoV-2 being familiarly referred to as the 'Wuhan virus',
until the World Health Organization gave it the pandemic name it is now
known by, COVID-19.
And
now that world powers like the United States and Great Britain are
leading a drive for a full and deep investigation to discover the
origins of the virus causing COVID-19, Beijing continues to deny that
suspicions harboured by many in the West that the closed high-security
Wuhan Virology Institute laboratory might possibly have loosed the virus
accidentally, giving the virus its villainous start on its global
predation. Chinese authorities found it much more palatable to insist
that the Huanan wet market was a likelier source of the zoonotic when
the pathogen made its leap from animal to human.
A
growing clamour of voices calling for an independent, unbiased and
unchaperoned-by-Chinese-authorities investigation take place to settle
the question once and for all; whether the virus origins was a lab-held
virus that made its escape or the leap of transmission between species.
The WHO assembly was informed by a Chinese representative the official
Chinese position that the "China part" of the origin-tracing study "has been completed". In other words: you want to study further, go right ahead but don't expect any cooperation from China.
An interpreter made it clear as well that China was interested in seeing "a global origin-tracing cooperation"
-- the translation of which is that China feels the hunt would be best
carried out elsewhere than in China. Literally washing its hands of any
further investigation, much less the thought that China would further
lend itself to another such survey as the original WHO 'independent'
investigation when the investigation team was comprised of more Chinese
investigators than WHO investigators.
And
where the official presence of Chinese authorities at all interviews
and site visits constrained a deep and useful investigation, topped off
by China's refusal to allow the WHO investigators access to critical
records. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian suggested on Wednesday that U.S. sites should be explored -- reflecting
Chinese specious 'speculation' the coronavirus could have emerged there. Surely derisively.
Wuhan,
a central Chinese city of 11 million people, is where China's
first-ever BSL-4-certified laboratory is located. This is a rare
classification identifying laboratories meant to work with the world's
most lethal pathogens. When it was opened in 2018, the Wuhan Institute
of Virology campus was recognized as specializing in coronavirus
studies, particularly bat coronaviruses which just happen to represent
the likely origin of COVID-19.
The Wuhan Institute is noted for its unusual housing of the "most comprehensive inventory of sampled bat viruses in the world", according to a January investigation by New York
magazine, considered the most rigorous journalistic probe into the
COVID-19 potential lab origins. In addition, the lab is understood to
engage in gain-of-function experiments, where researchers attempt to
supercharge coronaviruses to infect lab mice or human cell samples.
Gain-of-function is meant to discover methods of combating the emergence
of new viruses from nature, but it is also "exactly the kind of experiment from which a SARS-2-like virus could have emerged", explains a scientific breakdown of COVID-129 origins by The Wire, an Indian news site.
Given
these incriminating circumstances, how likely is it that a novel
coronavirus linked to bats might have simply by coincidence begun
infecting humans who just happened to be located within easy walking
distance of a laboratory that incidentally is the world centre for
studying highly infectious bat coronaviruses? As a plot of fictitious
origins it is hardly believable, as a scenario of real-time
circumstances, there is no competition for the actual location of the
Virology laboratory escape.
With
respect to circumstantial identification of source, American diplomats
back in 2018, long before the emergence of the coronavirus causing
COVID, visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology and afterward drafted a
cable to Washington complete with a heads-up warning of a mishap waiting
to happen. Their distinct impression was that the facility's safety and
security standards were lax enough to risk sparking a pandemic.
According to the Washington Post, which headed the story, "The
new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and
investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment
laboratory", read the cable.
Three years later, the revelation that a US. intelligence report that three workers at the Wuhan Institute were hospitalized "with symptoms consistent with both COVID19 and common seasonal illness",
came out this week. Another very peculiar coincidence, this time
bringing Canada into the narrative, when researcher Xiangguo Qiu,
working at the high-security BSL-4 lab at the National Microbiology
Laboratory in Winnipeg was escorted from the facility along with her
scientist husband and a Chinese student, all later fired, with no public
explanation.
The
two-week investigation by the World Health Organization scientific team
of ten, joined by a team of 17 Chinese scientists in Wuhan conducted
interviews under constant supervision. The researchers spent a mere few
hours at the Virology lab where select documents were presented for
their examination but no forensic examination of lab protocols was
undertaken, only a few supervised meetings with laboratory staff who
assured them the institute had witnessed "no disruptions or incidents" at the time of the emergence of COVID-19.
"The lab leak hypothesis has picked up more adherents as time passes and scientists fail to detect a bat or other animal infected with a virus that has covid’s signature genetics. By contrast, within a few months of the start of the 2003 SARS pandemic, scientists found the culprit coronavirus in animals sold in Chinese markets. But samples from 80,000 animals to date have failed to turn up a virus pointing to the origins of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes covid.""The virus’s ancestors originated in bats in southern China, 600 miles from Wuhan. But covid contains unusual mutations or sequences that made it ideal for infecting people, an issue explored in depth by journalist Nicholas Wade.""Scientists from the Wuhan Institute have collected thousands of coronavirus specimens from bats and registered them in databases closed to inspection. Could one of those viruses have escaped, perhaps after a “gain of function” experiment that rendered it more dangerous?"Arthur Allen, KHN
Labels: China, Cooperation, Investigation, Origins, SARS-CoV-2, Wuhan, Wuhan Virology Laboratory
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