 |
| AP Photo/Ng Han Guan |
China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the COVID-19 pandemic may have started, conducted work on a deadlier virus with a 60% lethality rate, according to recent Senate testimony.
Steven Quay, a medical doctor, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on emerging threats that the Wuhan institute carried out synthetic biology research on the Nipah virus genome in December 2019, around the time the first COVID-19 cases surfaced in Wuhan. Scientists are divided over whether the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 emerged naturally through animals or can be traced to a leak or accident at the Wuhan facility.
“The Nipah virus was in an infectious clone format,” Dr. Quay testified. “Nipah is a BSL-4 level pathogen and a CDC-designated bioterrorism agent. This is the most dangerous gain-of-function research I have ever encountered. We should assume this research continues to this day at the WIV.”
If confirmed, China’s research on Nipah could violate the Biological Weapons Convention, which Beijing has signed, that prohibits work on agents that can be used as bioweapons.
Nipah is smaller than the virus behind COVID-19, known as SARS-CoV-2, and is less transmissible.
“But it is one of the deadliest viruses, with a 60% lethality,” said Dr. Quay, chief executive officer of Atossa Therapeutics, a Seattle-based pharmaceutical company.
“This is 60 times deadlier than SARS-2,” he said, using the shortened term for the virus behind COVID-19. “The lab where the human specimens were processed is not the highest-level biosafety lab, BSL-4, but was in the BSL-2 or -3 facility.”
Dr. Quay said he did not know why Chinese researchers were working on the Nipah virus, “but a laboratory-acquired infection with a modified Nipah virus would make the COVID-19 pandemic look like a walk in the park.” --->READ MORE HERE
 |
| HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images |
The chairman of the Lancet's COVID-19 Commission has come forward to say that he is "pretty convinced" that the pandemic's origin is from "U.S. lab biotechnology." He also warns that even more dangerous research is happening right now – which could be why governments don't seem to be interested in investigating the origins of COVID-19.
Jeffrey Sachs is the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, the president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, winner of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, a best-selling author, and a Chairman of the Lancet's COVID-19 Commission.
In November 2020, Sachs assembled a task force for the prestigious medical journal to determine the origins of COVID-19. He hand-selected Dr. Peter Daszak – the president of EcoHealth Alliance – to be the chairman of the task force. However, Daszak recused himself from the investigation in June 2021, following accusations of a conflict of interest.
Daszak had deep ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars of National Institutes of Health funding to the Chinese lab. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Daszak has vehemently argued that COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease that jumped from animals to humans. Furthermore, he vociferously argued that suggesting that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak is a baseless conspiracy theory. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
US University Admits It May Have Broken Law In Contract With Wuhan Lab
Covid Lockdown Angers Tourists in China Beach Resort City
USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates
WSJ: Coronavirus Live Updates
YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates
NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest
If you like what you see, please "Like" and/or Follow us on FACEBOOK here, GETTR here, and TWITTER here.
No comments:
Post a Comment