Archiv: Biosecurity Level (BSL) 4 laboratories / Biolabore


05.05.2023 - 21:52 [ Unlimited Hangout ]

DARPA’s Man in Wuhan

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded a $6.5 million contract to a company called EcoHealth Alliance, Inc to carry out research on “the risk of bat-borne zoonotic disease emergence in Western Asia”. Journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva uncovered the Pentagon project, which focused on “genetic studies on coronaviruses in 5,000 bats collected in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Jordan”.

Gaytandzhieva also detailed the multiple covert activities being carried out by the USG, such as American diplomats trafficking in blood and pathogens for a secret military program, as well as an instance in which a breakout of hemorrhagic fever in the area immediately surrounding the Center was traced back to experiments being carried out by Pentagon scientists on “tropical mosquitos and ticks“.

Not coincidentally, EcoHealth Alliance had previously received a $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2014 to study coronaviruses in bats in Asia. This particular study was carried out in partnership with scientists at none other than the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

26.10.2022 - 07:50 [ Biorxiv.org ]

Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2

(20.10.2022)

The goal of this paper is to address the question whether SARS-CoV-2 originated from an animal-to-human spillover or from experiments performed in a laboratory. In the latter scenario, it is possible that evidence exists for manipulation of the viral genome by common laboratory techniques. SARS-CoV-2 is a large RNA virus. To create infectious versions of CoVs, the entire 30kb RNA genome is reconstructed in DNA by in vitro genome assembly (IVGA). IVGA has been used to create reverse genetic systems for modified and chimeric RNA viruses for more than 20 years (Yount et al, 2000). Most importantly, IVGA methods can leave genetic fingerprints, and we find those fingerprints in the genome of SARS-CoV-2.

26.10.2022 - 07:36 [ ntv Nachrichten / Nitter ]

Neue Studie sorgt für Wirbel: Deutscher Forscher: Sars-CoV-2 kommt zu 99,9 Prozent aus Labor

(23.10.2022)

19.08.2022 - 06:51 [ TKP.at ]

Covid-Laborthese: Wenn nicht vom Markt, woher dann?

Am 03.05.20 wurde in Frankreich eine Studie veröffentlicht, die Covid-19 in Abwasserproben vom Dezember 2019 aus Paris nachgewiesen hatten. (Quelle: Deslandes et al., “SARS-CoV-2 was already spreading in France in late December 2019”). Am 18.06.20 wurden Ergebnisse aus Mailand, Turin und Bologna veröffentlicht, die zu dem gleichen Ergebnis (schon im Dezember 2019) kamen. (Quelle: ISS, “CS N°39/2020 – Studio ISS su acque di scarico, a Milano e Torino Sars-Cov-2 presente già a dicembre”). Am 26.06.20 berichtete die Universität von Barcelona, dass sogar schon im März 2019 Spuren von Covid-19 gefunden wurden. (University of Barcelona, Spain. [G. Echevarria-Miró, E. Anfruns-Estrada, S. Guix, R.M. Pintó, A. Bosch], Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater anticipates the occurrence of COVID-19 cases.)

(…)

Bereits 1867 schrieb Karl Marx im „Kapital“: „Das Kapital hat einen Horror vor Abwesenheit von Profit oder sehr kleinem Profit, wie die Natur vor der Leere. Mit entsprechendem Profit wird Kapital kühn. Zehn Prozent sicher, und man kann es überall anwenden; 20 Prozent, es wird lebhaft; 50 Prozent, positiv waghalsig; für 100 Prozent stampft es alle menschlichen Gesetze unter seinen Fuß; 300 Prozent, und es existiert kein Verbrechen, das es nicht riskiert, selbst auf Gefahr des Galgens.“ (Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Bd. 1, zitiert nach: Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK der SED, Marx-Engels-Werke Bd. 23, Berlin/DDR 1962, S. 788)

19.08.2022 - 06:34 [ SciTechDaily.com ]

What Is the Origin of COVID-19 Variants Like Omicron?

(July 2, 2022)

According to recent research from Tel Aviv University, immunosuppressed chronic COVID-19 patients are thought to be the source of several SARS-CoV-2 variants. The researchers hypothesize that a compromised immune reaction, particularly in the lower airways of these chronic patients, may delay complete recovery from the virus and cause the virus to evolve often during the course of prolonged infection.

19.08.2022 - 06:27 [ Wired.co.uk ]

The Origins of Covid-19 Are More Complicated Than Once Thought

(04.Aug 2022)

It might seem unlikely that a once-in-a-generation event happened twice within the space of a couple of weeks, but actually, says Wertheim, once all the conditions were in place—a zoonotic virus capable of human infection in close proximity to humans—it would have been surprising if it had only happened once. The barriers to spillover had been lowered. “We failed to climb Mount Everest for thousands of years, and then in one day two people did,” says Andersen.

19.08.2022 - 05:55 [ TKP.at ]

WHO: Markt von Wuhan nicht Ursprung von Covid

Christine Anderson, die auf AfD-Ticket im EU-Parlament sitzt, ist stellvertretendes Mitglied im „Covid-19 Untersuchungsausschuss“ des EU-Parlaments. Der Ausschuss, der medial äußerst unterbelichtet ist, bringt offenbar doch Details ans Licht.

So berichtet Anderson am Sonntag auf ihrem Telegram-Kanal, dass die WHO die These vom Tiermarkt in Wuhan beseitigt habe. Die Vorsitzende des Untersuchungsausschusses habe an der WHO-Hauptversammlung im Mai in Genf teilgenommen und Anderson liege nun das Protokoll vor: „Ich staunte nicht schlecht, als ich dort – halb versteckt in einem Nebensatz – das klammheimliche Verschwinden eines weiteren Corona-Narrativs feststellte.“ Das letzte Paper der WHO zum Ursprung von Covid stammt vom März 2021.

Laut dem Protokoll der Hauptversammlung würde „ein ranghoher Wissenschaftler der WHO den Tiermarkt in Wuhan nicht mehr als Ausgangspunkt der ‚Pandemie‘ betrachten.“ Es handelt sich dabei um Dr. Jaoud Mahjour, WHO-Regionaldirektor. Er soll bei der Hauptversammlung folgenden Satz gesagt haben: „Nach den Einschätzungen der WHO könnten die ersten COVID-Fälle […] auf November 2019 zurückgehen, weshalb sie den Markt in Wuhan nicht für den Ursprung des Virus hält.“

25.02.2022 - 09:08 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

More evidence Covid was tinkered with in a lab? Now scientists find virus contains tiny chunk of DNA that matches sequence patented by Moderna THREE YEARS before pandemic began

„Sometimes these things happen fortuitously, sometimes it‘s the result of convergent evolution “ …

‚It‘s a quirky observation but I wouldn‘t call it a smoking gun because it‘s too small.

He added: ‚It doesn‘t get us any further with the debate about whether Covid was engineered.‘

25.02.2022 - 08:58 [ Stefan Homburg / Twitter ]

Laborthese: In einem begutachteten Fachartikel beziffern Forscher die Wahrscheinlichkeit für einen natürlichen Virusursprung mit 1 zu 3 Billionen. Sie fanden ein Fragment von SARS-CoV-2 in einem Patent von Moderna aus 2016 …

28.08.2021 - 12:43 [ theGuardian.com ]

All theories on origins of Covid-19 outbreak still ‘on the table’, says WHO

(25.08.2021)

“The current situation is that all of the hypotheses regarding to the origins of the virus are still on the table,” Michael Ryan, the head of the WHO’s health emergencies programme, in response to a question about the laboratory leak theory. “Some are more likely than others based on the current analysis, but all of those hypotheses require further elucidation and further inquiry and we will go and look where all of those leads take the WHO.”

28.08.2021 - 12:38 [ Washington Post ]

Biden receives inconclusive intelligence report on covid origins

The report falls short of concluding whether the coronavirus jumped from animal to human, or might have accidentally escaped from a lab in China

28.08.2021 - 12:24 [ Tagesschau.de ]

Bericht der US-Geheimdienste: Corona-Ursprung bleibt ungeklärt

Rund drei Monate lang hatten US-Geheimdienste im Auftrag von US-Präsident Joe Biden zum Ursprung des Coronavirus recherchiert. Jetzt liegt ihr Bericht vor – doch zu einem eindeutigen Ergebnis sind sie nicht gekommen. Ob das Virus aus einem Labor stamme oder von einem Tier auf den Menschen übergesprungen sei, sei offen, hieß es. Beides seien „plausible Hypothesen“.

12.08.2021 - 06:49 [ Tagesschau.de ]

Angeblicher Experte in China: Der mysteriöse Wilson Edwards

Der Fall zeigt, wie hoch politisiert die Suche nach dem Ursprung des Corona-Virus gerade auf chinesischer Seite ist. Für die USA und die Weltgesundheitsorganisation ist die Laborthese nicht vom Tisch. Solange diese These aber weiter im Spiel ist, blockt China weitere Untersuchungen ab – und sucht Unterstützung notfalls auch bei Phantom-Forschern.

13.06.2021 - 06:13 [ Tagesschau.de ]

Ursprung von Sars-CoV-2: Nach 18 Monaten immer noch im Dunkeln

Auch bei dem in der kommenden Woche in Brüssel anstehenden EU-USA-Gipfel wird eine entsprechende Erklärung dieses Inhalts erwartet. Im Entwurf der Erklärung heißt es, eine „transparente, faktengestützte und von Experten geleitete“ Untersuchung unter Leitung der WHO sei notwendig. Diese müsse „frei von Beeinflussungen“ stattfinden.

09.06.2021 - 10:35 [ Wall Street Journal ]

Anthony Fauci and the Wuhan Lab

(03.06.2021)

Of particular interest: From 2014-19, the National Institutes of Health sent $3.4 million to the WIV through the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance. “I just wanted to say a personal thankyou on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin,” EcoHealth Alliance chief Peter Daszak gushed to Dr. Fauci in a partly redacted April 2020 email.

09.06.2021 - 10:34 [ Washington Post ]

Fact-checking the Paul-Fauci flap over Wuhan lab funding

(May 18, 2021)

Juicing up super viruses is not new. Scientists in the U.S. have long known how to mutate animal viruses to infect humans. For years, Dr. Ralph Baric, a virologist in the U.S., has been collaborating with Dr. Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virology Institute, sharing his discoveries about how to create super viruses. This gain-of-function research has been funded by the NIH. … Dr. Fauci, do you still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan?”

— Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), remarks at a Senate hearing, May 11

“Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not never and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

— Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in response.

09.06.2021 - 10:15 [ Achse des Guten ]

Wuhan-Affäre: “Die Weltbevölkerung in die Irre geführt”

Nun aber ist auch in der Presse und dem Rundfunk ein starker Stimmungsumschwung wahrnehmbar. Wodurch wurde der ausgelöst?

Es gab zunächst einmal einen großen Stimmungsumschwung in den USA, das war das Wesentliche. Ich war selbst in viele Gespräche mit amerikanischen Kollegen involviert. In den USA einen Stimmungsumschwung zu erreichen, war sehr wichtig, gerade wegen der besonderen Situation dort. Wir wissen, dass eine Unterabteilung der National Institutes of Health (NIH), die von [dem medizinischen Chefberater des Weißen Hauses; S.F.] Anthony Fauci geleitet wird, mehrere hochriskante Gain-of-function-Forschungsprojekte mit Coronaviren [Experimente, die darauf abzielen, die Übertragbarkeit und/oder Virulenz von Krankheitserregern zu erhöhen; S.F.] in Wuhan jahrelang gefördert hat.

08.06.2021 - 09:20 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

Secret report by respected US government laboratory concluded in May last year that it was plausible coronavirus LEAKED from Wuhan lab – and said theory deserved further investigation

Scientists at the the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, near Berkeley, analyzed the genetic makeup of the virus to try to understand how it evolved.

They passed their May 27, 2020 findings on to the State Department in October. The five-month delay was not explained.

On January 15 the State Department published a fact sheet about COVID-19, which said that ‚circumstantial‘ evidence suggested a lab leak theory was possible.

The secret document the California lab produced was not known about until Monday, when The Wall Street Journal reported on its existence.

01.06.2021 - 10:01 [ Radio Utopie ]

Coronavirus: Einen kleinen Staatsstreich spielen

(21. März 2020)

Ein denkbares Szenario ist: nach einer unauffälligen Schamfrist und nach Einschätzung der „strategischen Lage“ durch den geheimdienstlichen Komplex (fügt sich die Bevölkerung? Wer widerspricht noch? Wer meckert, wo wohnt der, welche Freunde hat der? Welche Multiplikatoren und Influenzer, äh, dings, berichten noch nicht auf Befehl? Wer liest die Meckerer? Wo wohnen die, was verdienen die? etc, etc) erfolgt ein Umschwenken des organisierten Wahrheitsmanagements seitens Massenmedien und Regierungen hin zu einer Gefahr durch Biowaffen, Biotechnologie und „Bioterrorismus“, natürlich immer durch die Anderen.

01.06.2021 - 09:41 [ Fox News ]

UK intelligence reassesses COVID lab leak theory, now says its ‘feasible’

British intelligence services are now reportedly reassessing their position on the theory that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.

A Sunday report from the Sunday Times of London quotes British spies who initially dismissed the lab leak theory, but now say it is „feasible.“

30.05.2021 - 12:47 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

We can‘t let them cancel Freedom Day because of another ‚scariant‘

(18.05.2021)

How blissfully everyone slipped back into near-normality on Monday, and with such a huge sigh of relief. Lunch with friends in a restaurant, holding your mother’s hand without fear, tickets for a show. Small pleasures, but how sweet they taste. Just as our long hibernation felt almost at an end and we began to believe we could slough off that lockdown lassitude and banish the gnawing worm of anxiety, here comes the… Indian variant. Bwa-hah-hah-hah!

The pattern should be familiar by now

29.05.2021 - 15:13 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

EXCLUSIVE: COVID-19 ‚has NO credible natural ancestor‘ and WAS created by Chinese scientists who then tried to cover their tracks with ‚retro-engineering‘ to make it seem like it naturally arose from bats, explosive new study claims

– An explosive new study claims researchers found ‚unique fingerprints‚ in COVID-19 samples that they say could only have arisen from manipulation in a laboratory

– DailyMail.com exclusively obtained the new 22-page paper authored by British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen set to be published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery

– The study showed there‘s evidence to suggest Chinese scientists created the virus while working on a Gain of Function project in a Wuhan lab

– Gain of Function research, which was temporarily outlawed in the US, involves altering naturally-occurring viruses to make them more infectious in order to study their potential effects on humans
According to the paper, Chinese scientists took a natural coronavirus ‚backbone‘ found in Chinese cave bats and spliced onto it a new ‚spike‘, turning it into the deadly and highly transmissible COVID-19

– The researchers, who concluded that COVID-19 ‚has no credible natural ancestor‚, also believe scientists reverse-engineered versions of the virus to cover up their tracks.

‚We think that there have been retro-engineered viruses created,‘ Dalgleish told DailyMail.com. ‚They‘ve changed the virus, then tried to make out it was in a sequence years ago.‘

29.05.2021 - 15:03 [ Reitschuster.de ]

Die Hinweise auf die Labor-These verdichten sich – Rätsel um den Ausbruch der Pandemie

Gut drei Monate später gibt es immer mehr ernstzunehmende Diskussionsbeiträge, die Wiesendanger rehabilitieren. Seine meist als Verschwörungstheorie gebrandmarkte These wird nun zunehmend aus der Schmuddelecke der Verschwörungstheorien befreit. Das Coronavirus könnte theoretisch das Ergebnis eines Laborunfalls sein, schreiben etwa 18 Top-Wissenschaftler im renommierten Fachmagazin „Science.“

Sie fordern, diese Möglichkeit eingehender zu untersuchen.

29.05.2021 - 14:55 [ Science Magazine ]

Investigate the origins of COVID-19

(14.05.2021)

Finally, in this time of unfortunate anti-Asian sentiment in some countries, we note that at the beginning of the pandemic, it was Chinese doctors, scientists, journalists, and citizens who shared with the world crucial information about the spread of the virus—often at great personal cost (8, 9). We should show the same determination in promoting a dispassionate science-based discourse on this difficult but important issue.

29.05.2021 - 10:43 [ Washington Post ]

Coronavirus ‘lab leak’ theory jumps from mocked to maybe as Biden orders intelligence review

Far from dismissing the lab-leak theory, however, President Biden has told his spies to see if the previous administration’s officials, whose work some of his own skeptical aides have called tendentious and overreaching, may have been right to question the lab and conduct a thorough investigation. The White House recently was told that a large amount of information remained to be examined that could shed light on the question, according to a senior administration official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

27.05.2021 - 13:07 [ ZDF ]

Untersuchung angeordnet – Biden lässt nach Corona-Ursprung forschen

Woher kommt das Coronavirus? Hartnäckig halten sich Mutmaßungen über einen Laborunfall. Der US-Präsident fordert von seinen Geheimdiensten Aufklärung.

24.05.2021 - 12:45 [ CNN ]

Wuhan lab director says US intelligence report is „a complete lie“

The director of the Wuhan National Biosafety Lab told Chinese state media Monday the claim in a new United States intelligence report that several researchers at the lab were hospitalized in November 2019, was „a complete lie.“

„Those claims are groundless,“ lab director Yuan Zhiming told nationalist tabloid Global Times. „The lab has not been aware of this situation, and I don‘t even know where such information came from.“

25.04.2021 - 10:23 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

Worrying new clues about the origins of Covid: How scientists at Wuhan lab helped Chinese army in secret project to find animal viruses, writes IAN BIRRELL

An update in 2018 said that the scientific teams – who published many of their findings in international journals – had found four new pathogens and ten new bacteria while ‚more than 1,640 new viruses were discovered using metagenomics technology‘. Such research is based on extraction of genetic material from samples such as those collected by Prof Shi from bat faeces and blood in the cave networks of southern China.

Such extensive sampling led to Prof Shi‘s rapid revelation last year of RaTG13, the closest known relative to the new strain of coronavirus that causes Covid.

It was stored at the Wuhan lab, the biggest repository of bat coronaviruses in Asia.

30.03.2021 - 23:04 [ ORF.at ]

WHO-Chef will Laborthese weiter untersuchen

Die Möglichkeit einer absichtlichen Freisetzung von SARS-CoV-2 wurde nicht untersucht.

20.02.2021 - 04:50 [ researchgate.net ]

Studie zum Ursprung der Coronavirus-Pandemie

Zusammenfassend kann festgehalten werden, dass es sehr viele Indizien gibt, die einen Laborunfall im „Wuhan Institute of Virology“ als die mit Abstand wahrscheinlichste Ursache für die Corona-Pandemie erscheinen lassen. In diesem Fall würde es sich nicht um eine „Naturkatastrophe“ handeln, sondern um eine von Menschen selbst herbeigeführte Tragödie. Es besteht eine sehr große Gefahr darin, die Frage nach der Ursache für die gegenwärtige Pandemie „als geklärt“ zu deklarieren, wie etwa in dem Statement [III.4] einiger Virologen. Für politische Entscheidungsträger macht es unbestreitbar einen Unterschied, ob sie Wildtiermärkte oder Hochrisikoforschung mit gentechnisch manipulierten Viren weltweit verbieten sollen. Diese Frage muss verstärkt in den Vordergrund rücken, ansonsten könnten Corona- und andere Virenarten noch ein viel größeres Gefahrenpotential entwickeln, nicht nur in der Gegenwart, sondern auch in der Zukunft.

(…)

Auffallend bei der gegenwärtigen Pandemie im Vergleich zu früheren Ausbrüchen von Coronavirus-bedingten Erkrankungen ist:
1) Wir haben es in der gegenwärtigen Pandemie mit einem Erreger zu tun, der mit einer bislang nicht bekannten Effizienz menschliche Zellen angreift.
2) Dabei werden nicht nur die (oberen) Atemwege, sondern auch innere Organe angegriffen und in ihrer Funktion teilweise schwer geschädigt.
Man muss sich daher notwendigerweise die Frage stellen, wie eine solche nahezu perfekte Adaption von Coronaviren an menschliche Zellrezeptoren zustande kommen konnte, um zukünftige Pandemie-Gefahrenpotentiale identifizieren zu können.

20.02.2021 - 04:28 [ Tagesschau.de ]

Dokumentation zu Virusherkunft: Kaum Belege für Labortheorie

Der Professor scheint seit Langem kursierende Vermutungen wissenschaftlich zu bestätigen. Doch nicht das Ergebnis steht nun im Mittelpunkt, stattdessen löste die Pressemitteilung eine Debatte über die Qualität seiner Arbeit aus. So distanzierten sich Studierende der Universität Hamburg und der Studierendenausschuss von der Veröffentlichung. Sie entspreche nicht den wissenschaftlichen Standards, die von einer Universität erwartet würden.

16.02.2021 - 09:39 [ Peter Ben Embarek / Twitter ]

Thanks @kakape for the opportunity to clarify our findings. One of the misunderstanding has been about the nature of our work in the past month. It was a joint @WHO – #China mission to review the July agreed phase 1 studies and plan a series of new studies. Work in progress.

16.02.2021 - 09:37 [ Peter Daszak / Twitter ]

This was NOT my experience on @WHO mission. As lead of animal/environment working group I found trust & openness w/ my China counterparts. We DID get access to critical new data throughout. We DID increase our understanding of likely spillover pathways.

(13.02.2021)

16.02.2021 - 09:34 [ Tagesschau.de ]

WHO-Experten fordern mehr Daten von China

Aus chinesischer Sicht war es gut gelaufen: Bei der Abschlusspressekonferenz der WHO-Mission vergangene Woche in Wuhan gab es keine Kritik an China. Allerdings auch keine wirklich dramatisch neuen Erkenntnisse über den Ursprung der Pandemie. Jetzt aber kommen aus dem Kreis der WHO-Experten Forderungen nach Zugang zu mehr chinesischen Daten, um die Spur der Pandemie weiter zurückverfolgen zu können.

09.02.2021 - 12:00 [ World Health Organization (WHO) / Twitter ]

LIVE from Wuhan : Media briefing on #COVID19 origin mission

09.02.2021 - 11:53 [ ORF.at ]

WHO: Ursache für Ausbruch in Wuhan noch nicht geklärt

Die Forschung müsse sich aber darauf konzentrieren, wie das Virus in Tieren zirkuliert, bevor Menschen infiziert werden, sagte der Experte. Ein Virus, das eine Pandemie auslösen kann, müsse bereits an den menschlichen Kontakt angepasst sein, sagte Liang.

08.02.2021 - 16:36 [ liquisearch.com ]

Biosafety Level – List of BSL-4 Facilities

According to the United State Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published on October 4, 2007, a total of 1356 CDC/USDA registered BSL-3 facilities were identified throughout the United States (GAO-08-108T ). This represents a very conservative estimate of the number of facilities in the US in 2007. Approximately 36% of these laboratories are located in academia. Only 15 BSL-4 facilities were identified at the time, including 9 at federal la

08.02.2021 - 16:35 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

Did the Covid-19 virus really escape from a Wuhan lab?

Chan and her colleague Dr Shing Hei Zhan scrutinised the evolutions of SARS-CoV-1 (the cause of the 2003 SARS epidemic) and SARS-CoV-2 (the cause of the current pandemic) in the early months of their respective outbreaks and found that while the former mutated rapidly in early human cases, as the virus adapted to its new host, the latter did not. This implies that the virus causing Covid-19 was already well adapted to infecting human beings, a point that was also suggested by the World Health Organization in its global study on the origins of Covid-19, published in November.

There are three possible explanations for this. The first is that the virus had circulated, undetected, in people for months. The second is that the virus was already highly adept at human-to-human transmission, even while it was still in bats or other animals. The third is that it had become adapted in human cells, or humanised animals, in a laboratory.

08.02.2021 - 16:20 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

Exclusive: Alarming new evidence on coronavirus mutation could bring tougher restrictions

(18.12.2020)

Government scientists at the Porton Down laboratory in Wiltshire have been conducting experiments on the new strain, and have confirmed ministers‘ fears about it being far more infectious than the original strain of the virus.

16.01.2021 - 19:29 [ thePrint.in ]

Why Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin is the object of national pride & scientific scepticism

The hasty nod for Bharat Biotech International Ltd.’s Covaxin, developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology, has raised eyebrows in the scientific and healthcare communities about a “public rollout of an untested product,” according to a national network of nongovernment organizations.

16.01.2021 - 13:04 [ MSN.com ]

Coronavirus D614G mutation found in 99.9% of cases at US hospital

(02.11.2020)

The finding adds credence to the theory the mutation, which accounts for 85 per cent of global cases, is more contagious than the original strain.

D614G is by far the most common strain of coronavirus affecting humans worldwide and first appeared in February in Europe.

16.01.2021 - 13:04 [ Wall Street Journal ]

The World Needs a Real Investigation Into the Origins of Covid-19

The world needs an inquiry that considers not just natural origins but the possibility that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, escaped from a laboratory. The WHO team, however, plans to build on reports by Chinese scientists rather than mount an independent investigation. Given that Chinese authorities have been slow to release information, penalized scientists and doctors who shared clinical and genomic details of the novel coronavirus, and have since demonstrated a keen interest in controlling the narrative of how the virus emerged, this is not a promising foundation for WHO’s investigation.

04.01.2021 - 11:08 [ Rubikon ]

Die Vertuschungsaktion

(22.12.2020)

Laut Alina Chan, Molekularbiologin am Broad Institute of Harvard und am MIT, kann man die Evolution von SARS-CoV-2 nicht mit der These eines zoonotischen Ursprungs in Einklang bringen, denn das Virus war bereits vollständig für die Mensch-zu-Mensch-Übertragung angepasst, als es zum ersten Mal auftrat.

Die renommierte medizinische Fachzeitschrift „Nature“ erlaubte anscheinend einigen Autoren, ihre Daten heimlich zu ändern, ohne auf diese Korrekturen in den Artikeln hinzuweisen.

Chans Untersuchungen zeigen, dass die Autoren ihre Proben umbenannt, falsch zugeordnet und ein Genomprofil generiert haben, das mit keiner ihrer Proben übereinstimmt. In anderen Papers fehlen Daten.

Das Coronavirus RaTG13, zu 96 Prozent mit SARS-CoV-2 identisch und somit der engste Verwandte, ist in Wirklichkeit btCoV-4991. Dieses Genom wurde schon 2013 in Proben nachgewiesen und 2016 veröffentlicht.

03.01.2021 - 18:22 [ theAustralian.com.au ]

Coronavirus: Scientists cast doubt on WHO’S China mission to find COVID-19 origin in Wuhan

(today)

Daszak was a frequent traveller to Wuhan and the bat colonies of Yunnan with WIV scientists on projects funded by EcoHealth with US grants — until the Trump administration abruptly severed support, citing bio-security concerns.

The British scientist has forcefully dismissed the scenario of a laboratory leak as “baloney” and a “conspiracy theory”, and praised the work of his Chinese counterparts, notably Shi Zhengli, the “bat woman” of Wuhan, who traced the origins of the earlier Sars coronavirus outbreak to a colony of horseshoe bats in Yunnan.

03.01.2021 - 18:16 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

The world must investigate all the mounting evidence Covid leaked from a Wuhan lab, writes IAN BIRRELL

(2 January 2021 | Updated: 12:06 GMT, 3 January 2021)

Now there is growing clamour from experts around the world that no stone should be left unturned during this inquiry – and that it must include one key element of a hunt which has all the hallmarks of a thriller novel.

This centres on a cave filled with bats, a clutch of mysterious deaths, some brilliant scientists carrying out futuristic experiments in a secretive laboratory – and a cover-up of epic proportions that, if proven, would have huge consequences for the Chinese Communist Party and the global practice of science.

03.01.2021 - 18:07 [ ChildrensHealthDefense.org ]

Did Top Medical Journal Help Cover Up Origins of SARS-CoV-2?

(11.09.2020)

– According to Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, SARS-CoV-2 did not evolve in a manner you’d expect, had it jumped from an animal to a human. It sprang into action fully evolved for human transmission
– It appears Nature, a top medical journal, has allowed authors to secretly alter data sets in their papers without publishing notices of correction
– Chan’s investigation reveals authors have renamed samples, failed to attribute them properly, and produced a genomic profile that doesn’t match the samples in their paper. Others are missing data
– RaTG13 — the coronavirus that most resembles SARS-CoV-2, being 96% identical — is actually btCoV-4991, a virus found in samples collected in 2013 and published in 2016
– If SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 and the subsequent response to it, came from a lab, then we need to reassess the future of gain-of-function research that allows for the weaponization of viruses

03.01.2021 - 17:53 [ Alina Chan / Twitter / threadreaderapp.com ]

Get ready. This is going to be an important thread. Election season will be over soon and hopefully more people will devote some attention to this… I‘m going to walk through a timeline of SARS2-related virus data published in the months after the outbreak. (1/30)

(25 Oct 20)

Since the outbreak in late 2019, events have been unfolding at such a fast pace that it is difficult to keep track of what happened and in what order.

I use visualizations of the timeline to follow key events relating to the search for the animal host of SARS2. (2/30)

Even today, I still hear people saying that SARS-CoV-2 came from pangolins and a Seafood market in Wuhan. I hope this analysis will help to clear things up. It will refresh us on significant early pandemic events and major publications discussing the origins of the virus (3/30).

03.01.2021 - 17:36 [ Annette Gartland / changingtimes.media ]

SARS-CoV-2: lab-origin hypothesis gains traction

(October 12, 2020)

– Researchers say there’s evidence within the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that suggests the virus is a product of genetic manipulation.
– Exiled Chinese scientist Li-Meng Yan says SARS-CoV-2 is an “unrestricted bioweapon” and there’s been “large-scale, organised scientific fraud”.
– Six miners in Yunnan, who were removing bat faeces from a cave, suffered a severe pneumonia-like illness in 2012 and three of them died. They had a high fever, dry cough, sore limbs, and headaches – all symptoms associated with Covid-19.
– A database containing information about the sequencing of samples collected from the Yunnan mine by researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been taken offline.
– There are said to be sequences of HIV-1 in the SARS-CoV-2 genome.
American and Chinese scientists have collaborated for decades on gain-of-function research.
– There have been numerous ‘leaks’ of viruses from laboratories, including during the SARS outbreak in 2003–2004.

03.01.2021 - 17:07 [ The Australian / ecambiomed.com ]

THE AUSTRALIAN | RaBtCoV/4991 | Out of the bat cave: China’s deadly maze Deep in China, three men entered a cave and died with a mystery illness. Why was it kept under wraps for years?

(July 6th, 2020)

Ebright believes an even more controversial theory should not be ruled out. “It also, of course, is a distinct possibility that work done in the laboratory on RaTG13 may have resulted in artificial in-laboratory adaptation that erased those three to five decades of evolutionary distance.”

It is a view Hibberd does not believe is possible. “Sars-Cov-2 and RaTG13 are not the same virus and I don’t think you can easily manipulate one into the other. It seems exceptionally difficult.”

Ebright alleges, however, that the type of work required to create COVID-19 from RaTG13 was “identical” to work the laboratory had done in the past. “The very same techniques, the very same experimental strategies using RaTG13 as the starting point, would yield a virus essentially identical to Sars-Cov-2.”