The Origin of the Wuhan Coronavirus

spaminator

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Feds drop court quest to keep documents on scientists' firing under wraps
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Publishing date:Aug 17, 2021 • 10 hours ago • 1 minute read • 17 Comments
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Feb. 3, 2021.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Feb. 3, 2021. PHOTO BY BLAIR GABLE /REUTERS
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OTTAWA — The Trudeau government is dropping its quest to have a court prohibit the disclosure of documents related to the firing of two scientists at Canada’s highest security laboratory.

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A House of Commons order to produce the documents was terminated, along with all other business before the House, when Parliament was dissolved Sunday for an election.

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Consequently, a Justice Department official says no purpose would be served in continuing the government’s application to the Federal Court to block the release of the documents which it maintained would be injurious to national security.

The government has served the Federal Court with a notice of discontinuance in the case.

The decision leaves unresolved the question of whether the House of Commons is supreme and has unfettered power to demand the production of any documents it sees fit, no matter how sensitive and regardless of privacy or national security laws.

Opposition parties joined forces to demand the documents in hopes that they’d shed light on why scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted out of Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory in July 2019 and subsequently fired last January.
 

spaminator

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U.S. intelligence community says it cannot solve COVID mystery without China
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Trevor Hunnicutt
Publishing date:Aug 27, 2021 • 12 hours ago • 3 minute read • Join the conversation
Workers in protective suits disinfect the compound of a primary school before schools reopen for the upcoming semester, following the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei province, China Aug. 25, 2021.
Workers in protective suits disinfect the compound of a primary school before schools reopen for the upcoming semester, following the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei province, China Aug. 25, 2021. PHOTO BY CHINA DAILY /via REUTERS
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. intelligence community does not believe it can resolve a debate over whether a Chinese laboratory incident was the source of COVID-19 without more information, U.S. officials said in a declassified summary on Friday.

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U.S. officials said only China can help solve questions about the true origins of the virus that has now killed 4.6 million people worldwide. “China’s cooperation most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of COVID-19,” they said.


President Joe Biden, who received a classified report earlier this week summarizing the investigation he had ordered, said Washington and its allies will continue to press the Chinese government for answers.

“Critical information about the origins of this pandemic exists in the People’s Republic of China, yet from the beginning, government officials in China have worked to prevent international investigators and members of the global public health community from accessing it,” Biden said in a statement after the summary was released.

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The summary, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, was set to worsen discord between Beijing and Washington at a time when the countries’ ties are at their lowest point in decades. In the United States, activists worried the investigation could also encourage violence against Asian Americans.

Reuters earlier reported that administration officials did not expect the analysis to settle debate about the virus’ origin.

China has ridiculed a theory that COVID-19 escaped from the state virology lab in Wuhan and pushed fringe theories including that the virus slipped out of a lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland, in 2019.

The U.S. report revealed new detail about the extent of the disagreement within the Biden administration over the so-called lab leak theory.

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Several organizations within the sprawling U.S. intelligence community thought the novel coronavirus emerged from “natural exposure to an animal infected with it or a close progenitor virus,” according to the summary.

But they had only “low confidence” in that conclusion, the summary said. Other groups were not able to come to any firm opinion at all on the origins.

One intelligence community segment, however, developed “moderate confidence” that the first human infection with COVID was likely due to a “laboratory-associated incident, probably involving experimentation, animal handling, or sampling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology” in China.


A team led by the World Health Organization (WHO) that spent four weeks in and around Wuhan in January and February dismissed that theory. But their March report, which was written jointly with Chinese scientists, has been faulted for using insufficient evidence to dismiss the theory.

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The new U.S. report concluded that analysts would not be able to provide “a more definitive explanation” without new information from China, such as clinical samples and epidemiological data about the earliest cases.

Initially, U.S. spy agencies strongly favoured the explanation that the virus originated in nature. But people familiar with intelligence reporting have said there has been little corroboration over recent months that the virus had spread widely and naturally among wild animals.

“While this review has concluded, our efforts to understand the origins of this pandemic will not rest,” Biden said. “We will do everything we can to trace the roots of this outbreak that has caused so much pain and death around the world, so that we can take every necessary precaution to prevent it from happening again.”

The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said the group has not ruled out any hypothesis. The Geneva-based organization is set to impanel a new committee to develop next steps on studying the virus SARS-CoV-2.

But epidemiological experts said the window was closing for any useful data to be collected, particularly from people infected by the disease in 2019, when the virus likely first emerged.
 
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Twin_Moose

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REVEALED: 26 out of the 27 Lancet scientists who trashed theory that Covid leaked from a Chinese lab have links to Wuhan researchers

  • The Lancet letter published in March 2020 called claims that Covid-19 originated in lab 'conspiracy theories'
  • It was signed by 27 scientists from across the globe working in virology and other medical science fields
  • The widely-read letter effectively ended all debate about origins of the global coronavirus pandemic
  • Investigation by The Telegraph has found 26 out of 27 had connections to China's Wuhan Institute of Virology
By CHRIS JEWERS FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 06:24 EDT, 11 September 2021 | UPDATED: 09:59 EDT, 11 September 2021
 

Twin_Moose

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Interesting twist after being outed as paid Chinese operatives

Now the Lancet U-turns over Covid lab leak theory and publishes 'alternative view' calling for a 'transparent debate' on the origins of the virus​

  • Peter Daszak secretly orchestrated a landmark statement in The Lancet this year
  • It attacked 'conspiracies suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin'
  • Now The Lancet agreed to publish alternative theories suggesting a lab origin
By GLEN OWEN and STEPHEN ADAMS FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

PUBLISHED: 19:58 EDT, 18 September 2021 | UPDATED: 03:24 EDT, 19 September 2021
 

spaminator

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Cambodia bat researchers on mission to track origin of COVID-19
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Cindy Liu and Prak Chan Thul
Publishing date:Sep 19, 2021 • 2 hours ago • 2 minute read • Join the conversation
A researcher from the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge takes an oral swab from a bat that was captured at Chhngauk Hill, Thala Borivat District, Steung Treng Province, Cambodia, Aug. 30, 2021.
A researcher from the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge takes an oral swab from a bat that was captured at Chhngauk Hill, Thala Borivat District, Steung Treng Province, Cambodia, Aug. 30, 2021. PHOTO BY CINDY LIU /REUTERS
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STUNG TRENG — Researchers are collecting samples from bats in northern Cambodia in a bid to understand the coronavirus pandemic, returning to a region where a very similar virus was found in the animals a decade ago.

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Two samples from horseshoe bats were collected in 2010 in Stung Treng province near Laos and kept in freezers at the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge (IPC) in Phnom Penh.


Tests done on them last year revealed a close relative to the coronavirus that has killed more than 4.6 million people worldwide.

An eight-member IPC research team has been collecting samples from bats and logging their species, sex, age and other details for a week. Similar research is going on in the Philippines.

“We hope that the result from this study can help the world to have a better understanding about COVID-19,” field coordinator Thavry Hoem told Reuters, as she held a net to catch bats.

Host species such as bats typically display no symptoms of pathogens, but these can be devastating if transmitted to humans or other animals.

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Dr. Veasna Duong, Head of Virology at the IPC, said his institute had made four such trips in the past two years, hoping for clues about the origin and evolution of the bat-borne virus.

“We want to find out whether the virus is still there and … to know how the virus has evolved,” he told Reuters.

Deadly viruses originating from bats include Ebola and other coronaviruses such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

But Veasna Duong said humans were responsible for the devastation caused by COVID-19, due to interference and destruction of natural habitats.

“If we try to be near wildlife, the chances of getting the virus carried by wildlife are more than normal. The chances of the virus transforming to infect humans are also more,” he said.

The French-funded project also aims to look at how the wildlife trade could be playing a part, said Julia Guillebaud, a research engineer at the IPC’s virology unit.

“(The project) aims to provide new knowledge on wild meat trade chains in Cambodia, document the diversity of betacoronaviruses circulating through these chains, and develop a flexible and integrated early-detection system of viral spill-over events,” Gillebaud said.
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Twin_Moose

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Chinese whistleblower claims first COVID outbreak was INTENTIONAL and happened in October 2019 at Military World Games in Wuhan - two months before China notified the world about virus​

  • Defector Wei Jingsheng said virus may have first spread at military tournament
  • Reports emerged in October 2019 athletes at event fell ill with mystery sickness
  • Mr Jingsheng alleged China deliberately spread virus during Military Games
  • He claims he took his concerns to senior figures in the US gov but was ignored
By CHARLIE COË and LEVI PARSONS FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

PUBLISHED: 22:44 EDT, 21 September 2021 | UPDATED: 10:17 EDT, 22 September 2021
 
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spaminator

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COVID-19 cover-up 'worse than Watergate,' new book claims
Author of the article:Denette Wilford
Publishing date:Sep 29, 2021 • 10 hours ago • 2 minute read • 10 Comments
Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan in a 2017 file photo.
Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan in a 2017 file photo. PHOTO BY JOHANNES EISELE /AFP
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It’s widely believed COVID-19 may have leaked from a Wuhan lab, despite China’s vehement denials.

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A new book about the pandemic, however, insists the coronavirus was leaked from a Wuhan research lab and the country is covering it up.


The first case of the novel coronavirus was reported in Wuhan in December 2019, believed to be originated at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.

Author and investigative journalist Sharri Markson says there is evidence the virus was leaked, reported the Mirror.

Her new book, What Really Happened in Wuhan, explores the theory that the outbreak accidentally came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which China has always maintained is untrue.

David Stilwell, an American former diplomat in East Asia, told Markson that China’s repeated assertion the virus had natural origins is “the cover-up of the century” before adding, “This makes Watergate look easy.”

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MORE ON THIS TOPIC

This file photo taken on April 17, 2020 shows an aerial view of the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province.
U.S. report concluded COVID-19 may have leaked from Wuhan lab: Report
Security guards keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the visit by the World Health Organization (WHO) team in Wuhan, China February 3, 2021.
EDITORIAL: We need an open investigation into the Wuhan lab leak theory
Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the visit by the World Health Organization (WHO) team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Wuhan, Hubei province, China February 3, 2021.
MALCOLM: The lab leak flip-flop shows what's wrong with journalism today

Markson backed up her leak beliefs with key evidence that points to an “unusual” military exercise that reportedly took place at Wuhan airport before the October 2019 Military World Games.

According to the Mirror, Chinese media reported a practice drill that simulated the responses to a new coronavirus was carried out.

Those who were infected for that exercise “now appear difficult to track down.”

Then there’s Huang Yanling, the Wuhan lab worker who allegedly vanished in January 2020, which only fuels her speculation fire.


And it doesn’t help that China has rejected plans for further investigation into the virus’ origins.

But while Markson could be bang on, former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove does not believe the leak was intentional.

“If you look at the evidence coldly, the likelihood is this is an escape from a laboratory, and it’s up to the Chinese to demonstrate conclusively to us that it isn’t, not just to tell us,” he told Markson.

“I’m not saying they deliberately released it, I’m saying this is a Chinese accident but there was a cover-up from day one.”
 
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pgs

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Sure don’t know where to find the Toronto Sun , glad Spamminator posts it everyday .
 

spaminator

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But after 6 in a roll with no response shows no one is interested in the topic at hand .
perhaps some threads should be automatically locked and or deleted if they become too old and or not enough activity. 💡
 

Ron in Regina

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Ugh… The site is intelligently designed in such a way that threads can go back for years and there could be an archive of thousands and thousands of them….

The active ones come to the top and Less active once fade to the back….& if you look hard you can find threads going back years and years if you search for them. Who knows what google search will bring someone new to explore the rants & raves from over the years….

There’s is not a problem with the site but just sour grapes in general at times. Nobody forces anyone to read anything…
 
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