What are we to make of the new claims from the Sunday Times, sourced from unnamed “U.S. investigators”, that scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) were secretly working with China’s military on bioweapons and vaccines that led to the creation – and inadvertent leaking – of the COVID-19 virus?
The U.S. investigators admit there is no published information on this WIV work, but say that’s because it was secret military research. The Sunday Times claims that the lab stopped making its findings public in 2016 after it discovered a new type of coronavirus in a mineshaft in Mojiang in Yunnan province where people had died from symptoms similar to SARS.
“The trail of papers starts to go dark,” one of the U.S. investigators told the newspaper. “That’s exactly when the classified programme kicked off. My view is that the reason Mojiang was covered up was due to military secrecy related to [the army’s] pursuit of dual-use capabilities in virological biological weapons and vaccines.”
The investigators are said to believe the classified programme was to make the mineshaft viruses more infectious to humans and may have led to the creation of the COVID-19 virus, which then leaked.
“It has become increasingly clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was involved in the creation, promulgation and cover-up of the COVID-19 pandemic,” one of the investigators said.
Despite the big fanfare over this report there doesn’t appear to be anything new in it. The heavy reliance on mysterious “U.S. investigators” also tells us we should expect U.S. intelligence to be behind this information, and that it is likely to be a ‘limited hangout’ telling us what (and only what) U.S. security services want us to hear.
It is of course possible, in theory, that the WIV and Chinese military were secretly working on these viruses, and that one leaked – there is nothing inherently implausible about such a scenario. But here’s why I’m not convinced.
The biggest problem is the behaviour of WIV personnel and Chinese officials in January 2020, which was completely at odds with the idea that they were aware that one of their secret ‘bioweapon’ viruses had escaped into the human population.
For a start, China infamously spent those first weeks playing down the threat from the new virus, censuring anyone who tried to spread alarm and saying it wasn’t even sure if it was spreading between humans. Its officials only acknowledged human-to-human transmission and started implementing countermeasures on or around January 23rd 2020, when they locked down Wuhan. If they actually knew that this virus was one of their escaped bioweapons, why would they do that? It makes little sense.
China and the WIV are often accused of covering up the virus. And indeed, since February 2020 the Chinese have been largely uncooperative with investigations into the origin of COVID-19 (though they have released some studies, on their own terms). But back in January 2020 it was a different story. In particular, senior WIV researcher Shi Zhengli and colleagues published on January 23rd a paper which included the genetic sequence of the new virus alongside that of its closest known relative, RaTG13 – the Mojiang mine virus referred to by the U.S. investigators – which was held by the WIV. They did not hide the closeness of the relationship between the two viruses:
We then found [that] a short [RNA-dependent RNA polymerase] region from a bat coronavirus termed BatCoV RaTG13 which we previously detected in Rhinolophus affinis from Yunnan Province showed high sequence identity to [the new coronavirus] nCoV-2019. We did full-length sequencing to this RNA sample. Simplot analysis showed that nCoV-2019 was highly similar throughout the genome to RaTG13 with 96.2% overall genome sequence identity. The phylogenetic analysis also showed that RaTG13 is the closest relative of the nCoV-2019 and form a distinct lineage from other [SARS-like coronaviruses]. The receptor binding protein spike (S) gene was highly divergent to other [coronaviruses], with less than 75% [nucleotide] sequence identity to all previously described [SARS-like coronaviruses] except a 93.1% [nucleotide] identity to RaTG13.
In its peer-reviewed form, published in Nature about a week later, the paper stated clearly that it did not appear that the new virus had emerged naturally from RaTG13: “No evidence for recombination events was detected in the genome.”
If this is supposed to be a cover-up of the close but non-natural relationship between the new virus and the sample held by the WIV then it has to be the worst one ever. I just cannot see what part this paper is supposed to have played in a cover-up, or how it fits with the idea that the WIV was aware that the new virus was one of its escaped bioweapons.
We should also note that the WIV and China did not continue to try to claim the virus originated from the Huanan wet market beyond a brief period in January 2020 when it looked like a possibility. It was U.S. scientists and officials who pushed that theory well past its sell-by-date, as part of their efforts to suppress the lab leak theory.
The nub of it is this. Nothing that has yet been released by Western intelligence proves that the Chinese secretly knew that SARS-CoV-2 was one of their escaped bioweapons. Meanwhile, Chinese actions in January 2020 imply the opposite, that they did not secretly know this was one of their leaked bioweapons. If they did, they would never have published ‘Discovery of a novel coronavirus associated with the recent pneumonia outbreak in humans and its potential bat origin‘.
On the other hand, there have been multiple reports from U.S. intelligence sources – though these have now been denied – that they were following the outbreak in China as early as November 2019 and were already concerned then.
Why were U.S. officials concerned in November about an outbreak that the Chinese did not appear concerned about even in January? Why have U.S. scientists always refused to reveal their own involvement in working with viruses like SARS-CoV-2, while the WIV, at least in January 2020, published detailed information about the new virus’s relationship to its sampled viruses?
These are the questions I’d really like answers to. But somehow I doubt a report originating from “U.S. investigators” is going to tell me.
Stop Press: We asked Matt Ridley, co-author with Alina Chan of Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19, to respond to some of the points Will made and he sent us this:
Will makes some decent points but I think he is attacking a straw man mostly – namely that the WIV staff knew they had leaked a bioweapon, which is not quite what the Sunday Times story says. The stronger argument is that they were working on a group of viruses that they had not published – they even removed a mention of them from a thesis by Ping Yu when they published it in 2019 – but which had been in their possession since 2013 – 4991/RaTG13 being one of them. When they realised that the cause of the outbreak was from this group, they had no option but to admit that the group existed because a part of 4991’s genome had been uploaded to international databases already, so they changed the name and made no mention of where it had been found or the furin cleavage site, etc. Damage control at a time when it looked like it would be a short outbreak of no global significance. It’s also possible that Shi was unaware of other work – possibly with military involvement – so she innocently said: “Oh look, this new virus is close to one we found a few years back.” So she kind of blew the secrecy unintentionally. WIV was definitely dual-use, by the way.
In other words, the evidence for a lab leak is very strong. The evidence it came out of an unpublished project: strong. The evidence that it was a secret military project: fairly weak. The evidence that it was a bioweapon, very weak.
This is why in our book we were so careful not to get into speculation but just lay out what we knew. These kind of arguments based on partial information can be frustrating.
The other key point is that these U.S. leaks came just before the deadline (next Sunday) for the release of the intelligence that the U.S. Government holds about this whole issue, as ordered by a recent act of congress. So it’s probable that there’s a Sinophile rearguard action within the administration to try to redact more stuff, and this is from disgruntled agents who disagree… Next week could be interesting.
Stop Press 2: Will responds:
I’m grateful to Matt for addressing my arguments, though I’m not fully convinced by what he says (while agreeing that arguments based on partial information are frustrating). He suggests the Discovery paper may be “Damage control at a time when it looked like it would be a short outbreak of no global significance”, yet this was the same moment they locked down Wuhan, suggesting they were now highly concerned. He also suggests, instead, that “[Shi Zhengli] kind of blew the secrecy unintentionally”, though this does not seem plausible as her paper would have been military and Government vetted.
I think there is an implication from many that the Chinese knew it was an escaped bioweapon all along, as per the quote from the U.S. investigator: “My view is that the reason Mojiang was covered up was due to military secrecy related to [the army’s] pursuit of dual-use capabilities in virological biological weapons and vaccines. … It has become increasingly clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was involved in the creation, promulgation and cover-up of the COVID-19 pandemic.” So I don’t think my argument is a straw man. The point about the publication of the Discovery paper being the worst cover-up ever also applies whether the claim is that they knew all along or only spotted the link with their bioweapon research during January.
I agree that next week’s releases should be interesting.
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It seems to me the CCP actions are entirely compatible with the CIA Sunday Times version. I’m not saying it is right, just plausible.
my thought is that CCP would be sufficiently frightened their bio weapon dual use research had created a monster which had escaped, to want to do something to alert the world and reduce criticism at a later date.
Since this is The Times saying this, who I unsubscribed from precisely because they were taking down my comments pointing out it was a lab leak; the same The Times as is owned by Rupert Murdoch who has just effectively sacked Tucker Carlson for saying things he doesn’t want said, and who is now spending a lot of money attempting to gag him (because legally he hasn’t been sacked but relieved of duty so is still receiving his $12m yearly salary). Because all the details have been known for a long time and this team are only just discovering them now, but with some added, unverified, morsels to make it seem like there is a new exclusive justifying it’s publication. Because of this background of high level control and, I note, an increasing level of preparation for conflict over Taiwan and rhetoric regarding the same, I rather suspect this article has got the green light to nudge the sheep into readiness to accept the idea of a new enemy combatant.
I rather fear the hawks have worked out they need conflict sooner rather than later because US military capability and spending still greatly outstrips China’s, but that probably won’t remain true for many more years.
There is way too much “intelligence”, “confidential”, “trust-me because I know“, etc. sources un-named in the corporate media these days. Such “news” pieces then tend to get amplified and repeated by other corporate media outlets who have nothing other than to re-publish what their media colleagues and competitors are saying”.
Whatever it was, it was a damp squib and was circulating earlier in 2019. The trail must lead back to the U.S. This however is a distraction.
The real issue is the amplification of fear and propaganda to give it a boost. Most people were more at risk from their own governments than from sars-cov-2. It was all about laying the ground work and developing the need for the vaccines and vaccine passports.
True, and this is exactly what Denis Rancourt has shown in his research, some of which I shared yesterday. The excess deaths started showing up shortly after the governments’ unprecedented responses then increased when the death jabs were rolled out. Whichever way you slice it mass democide has and is still happening across the globe.
Question: if the public as a whioe came to be convinced that COVID was an escaped bioweapon, would they be more or less likely to demand more state protection for possible future escaped bioweapons, “protections” such as those offered by the new WHO pandemic treaties?
A damp squib may have been the deliberate intention with the objective of laying the groundwork that you mentioned, vaccines, passports etc. Back in 2006 Ralph Baric (the professor at UNC responsible for the technology behind C19) wrote a paper which included a section on bioterrorism. In it he wrote “As a principal of bioterrorism is to inspire fear, highly pathogenic outcomes may not be necessary as large scale panic would likely result after the release of designer pathogens…” pg71.
Someone knows, someone is lying. Got to be US or China or both.
If it was a bioweapon it wasn’t a very effective one. Unless the intention was to make governments panic and damage their countries.
I agree. I think the whole “bio weapon” angle is nonsense. Sure this research has military interest and backing, it would be surprising if it didn’t. But the far more likely scenario IMO is that it was simply a vector to make money from government vaccine contracts covering 1/4 of the world. Why would you release an actual dangerous pathogen when you have family and children living in the world?
I think the whole vaccine deliberate harm thing is nonsense also. I think the harm simply derives from the fact they have trained themselves and honed the system to ignore safety signals because such get in the way of commercial delivery and that has been so effective, they now produce utter toxic garbage whilst believing their own press releases. This is for right thinking people pretty much deliberate harm, but I think the executives also genuinely aren’t attempting to harm the world, they just don’t care want the money and it is psychologically easier to believe their own press releases so they can look in the mirror.
One of the major problems is that they have side stepped the conventional methods of assessment, making use of “emergency use authorization” for the so-called “vaccine” products. What a surprise that it’s not as “safe and effective” as they claimed.
The concept of using an infection of that kind as a weapon is a bit weird as well. Most of the weapons of that kind, such as those developed in Russia, are usually fairly precise and targeted at individuals (more or less) – although there have been some unintended victims as well, e.g. the case in Salisbury a few years ago.
Whether planned to be a tool to test the deployment of authoritarian measures, or an opportunity that presented itself to test the deployment of authoritarian measures, it has certainly moved the needle and emboldened the authoritarians. However I think it has also woken people up in equal measure. Even to the extent I’m not sure the whole Bud Light boycott would have happened if it were not for Covid. I think Covid has changed the mood of conservatives (with a small c) such that they are finally becoming more inclined to take action.
A bioweapon doesn’t have to kill people, although the vast majority are designed to do this. Another way to inflict harm on an enemy, and this can include an economic rival or rival for influence on the global stage, not just a military enemy is to damage their economy and make them squander resources. In this respect covid was a highly effective bioweapon, probably made more effective by China first downplaying it’s seriousness then having a strict lockdown that they knew their useful idiots in WHO would encourage other countries to follow.
An obvious problem with this view is the fact that China kept locking down long after other countries more or less gave up on them. Maybe they were hoping that other countries would continue to follow their lead, or local officials believed this was what the government wanted them to do.
‘If it was a bioweapon it wasn’t a very effective one’ I agree with this, however____
The jabs that followed were a very effective bioweapon and humanity will be reaping the effects of this for many years if not generations to come.
Why did China publish the genetic sequence? Come on – we know by know that to any “Why?” question about any action by China, or Russia, the answer is “They are just evil!”
Evil people, it seems, are quite willing to shoot themselves in the foot just out of spite.
It was released into China from a US lab as an “economic” bioweapon to harm China financially.
The “accidental” escape from a lab theory is doubtful and a full blown economic attack by rogue elements of the US against China much more likely.
Fortunately, Ron Unz has been articulating this view from the very start.
Here are some of his bullet points.
Over the decades America has spent $100 billion creating the world’s largest biowarfare capability.
1) In 2017 Trump brought on board Robert Kadlec, who since the late 1990s had been America’s leading biowarfare advocate.
2) In 2018 and 2019 mysterious viral epidemics devastated China’s poultry and pork industries, severely damaging China’s food supply.
3) From January to August 2019, Kadlec ran the Federal/State “Crimson Contagion” exercise in which our government officials practiced their strategies of protecting American society from infection by a hypothetical dangerous respiratory virus that might suddenly appear in China.
4) In late October 2019, 300 American military servicemen visited Wuhan to participate in the World Military Games.
5) In late October/early November, Patient Zero in Wuhan became infected with Covid. The virus spread invisibly until the Chinese government discovered its presence near the end of December. The Chinese government finally reacted in early/mid-January.
6) In early January 2020, America assassinated Iran’s top military leader, with the retaliatory Iranian missile strike nearly leading to war.
7) In mid/late January 2020, the Wuhan virus suddenly jumped 3,500 miles to the Holy City of Qom, soon infecting Iran’s top political elites, with a number of them dying as a consequence. By February, Iran had become the second global epicenter of the Covid outbreak despite having a negligible Chinese population, while the later outbreaks in Italy and Spain were in locations with hundreds of thousands of Chinese.
8] In early March 2020, the Iranian government publicly accused America of having launched a biowarfare attack with Covid against Iran and China, with a formal complaint being submitted to the UN. However, virtually no Western media reported those accusations, so almost no Americans became aware of them.
9) In early April, four intelligence sources told ABC News that a secret November DIA report had described a “potentially cataclysmic” disease outbreak taking place in Wuhan, but this had been ignored by the Trump Administration. Israeli TV confirmed that Israel and NATO allies had received that report, which had been produced “in the second week of November.” But according to best current estimates, at that point only perhaps a dozen people were starting to feel a little sick in Wuhan, a city of 11 million.
The theory that it was a US bioweapons research program seems more compelling. We know that the US government, via Fauci’s National Institutes of Health, had been funding work at the Wuhan lab.
That would explain the sudden about face from the Chinese government, from cover up to lockdown; cover up initially from local officials and then lockdown once the Chinese military realised that the leak came from US virus research.
Of course this is speculation at this point, but seems to fit the known facts better than other explanations that have been proposed.
We can save much time and energy if, before we begin speculating about Covid’s origins, we carefully attend to the timing and sequence of events and authoritative publications.
The CDC, for example, certified the first US Covid death as occurring on Jan. 9, 2020, before the first Chinese death on Jan 11. https://tinyurl.com/bddh5vbz
The CDC also found 1%-4% of us Covid seropositive in December, 2019, when China had but 15 Covid cases. https://tinyurl.com/bde86nfu
Consistently with its overall Covid coverage, our media ignored the CDC’s findings.
CHART:
TIMELINE: https://herecomeschina.substack.com/p/covid-came-from-italy