Chinese authorities secretly investigated a lab at the heart of the row over Covid’s origin after the pandemic began, an ex-insider revealed today. The Mail has more.
President Xi Jinping’s communist administration has repeatedly denied the lab leak hypothesis throughout the pandemic, labelling it a smear campaign by ‘anti-China’ forces and insisting the virus emerged naturally in the city of Wuhan.
Yet Beijing considered the theory credible enough to instigate its own formal probe, according to the former chief of the country’s own CDC.
Professor George Gao, who ran the organisation when the pandemic began towards the end of 2019, claimed the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was “double-checked” by Government-backed experts.
The BBC says Professor Gao’s explosive revelation — shared with them — is the first acknowledgement of any internal inquiry taking place over the lab leak theory.
Discussing the possibility himself in a new podcast aimed to exploring the origins of the virus, he said: ‘You can always suspect anything. That’s science.
“Don’t rule out anything.”
At first, the overwhelming opinion, shared by the world’s leading experts, was that Covid crossed naturally from animals infected with a bat coronavirus.
But consensus over how the pandemic began three years ago has slowly started to shift.
The lab leak theory centres around the fact that the virus first emerged miles away from the WIV, where researchers were known to be working on coronaviruses found in bats.
No concrete proof to support either argument has ever been found, leaving experts fearing the truth will never be uncovered.
Professor Gao told Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s Origin that a formal investigation was carried out into the WIV after the start of the pandemic, although he did not specify when.
“That lab was double-checked by the experts in the field,” said the world-renowned immunologist and virologist.
Professor Goa admitted he hadn’t seen the official result of the probe – but added he had ‘heard’ the lab was given the all-clear.
“I think the conclusion is that they are following all the protocols. They haven’t found [any] wrongdoing,” he said.
In response to Professor Goa’s comments, China’s U.K. Embassy said: “The so-called ‘lab leak” is a lie created by anti-China forces. It is politically motivated and has no scientific basis.”
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“No concrete proof to support either argument has ever been found, leaving experts fearing the truth will never be uncovered.”
I disagree Toby. The weight of evidence is *firmly* with lab leak. Alex Washburn, a mathematician, had published a paper showing the geometric regularity of nucleotide sticky ends are a fingerprint firmly indicating the virus was synthesised.
When a virus is synthesised, it is usually done so using Golden Gate assembly. Researchers introducing synthesised sections need to ensure the genome remains the same overall length. To do this they cut up they arrange genetic ‘instructions’ into equal sized blocks. Nucleotide sticky ends are required at the start and end of each block for the blocks to be reassembled.
Sections of genome showing geometric distribution of nucleotide sticky ends are therefore a giveaway that lab synthesis has taken place.
SARS-COV2 contains just such geometric sections.
Add to this the presence of patented sequences and to maintain the virus genome is natural, we are starting to get into the territory of a monkey at a typewriter just happening to type out a play by Shakespeare.
Or deliberate leak – to get everyone mRNA jabbed – and Moderna a lot of money…
Dr. David Martin.
“…after the pandemic began…”
There was no pandemic.
There are a few shades within this statement. I agree, but I think it is fair to say there was a novel mild virus, which caused a temporary spike in mortality, which when put in context was like a bad year of seasonal flu except a little more abrupt, and which when measured over a couple of years of excess mortality, where temporary spikes in death amongst the old and infirm even out, does not warrant the label “pandemic” (IMO that is – and if on some technical “official” definition of the term it does qualify, then everyone needs to be aware of this and ideally the definition should be revised).
Such did not get anywhere near justifying the actual policy response we were subject to.
Some dispute there was a novel virus. I don’t, but I am not sure it matters that much. It was unexceptional in terms of mortality.
I’m bored with this topic now and it’s obviously become a limited hangout, something to constantly wave in front of our noses so that we don’t look at the bigger issues that really matter. I agree with Jikkyleaks, finding the origins of the ‘virus’ is less important than finding the origins of the propaganda because it was the latter that killed people…well, until the piece de resistance; mass deployment of the toxic medical countermeasures globally.