User:Jaredscribe/COVID-19

Origin
Despite insistence from the industrial medicine establishment that the virus must have had a natural origin, many scientists consider consider etiology of this novel coronavirus to be a pressing and open question. COVID-19 lab leak theory

Lab-leak cover-up
The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has participated in gain of function research in partnership with US universities and institutions.

Peter Daszak is the president of EcoHealth Alliance, and was project lead for six NIH studies which focused on the emergence of novel zoonotic coronaviruses (CoV) with bat-origin. Some of the project's work was performed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and parts of this research are considered gain-of-function studies. The six projects received a total funding of $3,748,715 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

The Lancet in Feb 2020 published a Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19, signed by 27 prominent public health scientist. In the statement, the signatories claim that: "The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin."

It did not disclose that the lead author Daszak and four other signatories have positions with EcoHealth Alliance, which has a financial stake in deflecting questions away from the possibility that the virus could have originated in a lab.

Despite conflicts of interest, he was chosen in early 2021 by the World Health Organization to lead an investigation into the origins of COVID-19. He is also president of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, and his biograph on the website does not disclose this conflict of interest.

Prominent molecular biologist Richard Ebright of Rutgers is quoted by the Taiwan News saying that this makes "it clear that WHO and Lancet reviews cannot be considered credible investigations." "Daszak has been a contractor, a collaborator, and a co-author on work at the WIV on construction and analysis of novel chimeric coronaviruses."

Other scientists consider the Daszak and Andersen letters published respectively in the Lancet and Nature, to have been political statements based on poor scientific reasoning, and consider etiology of this novel coronavirus to be a pressing and open question.

NIH DOCUMENTS PROVIDE NEW EVIDENCE U.S. FUNDED GAIN-OF-FUNCTION RESEARCH IN WUHAN. U.S.-funded experiment in China posed biosafety risks but did not cause Covid-19 pandemic, scientists say.

Still, several scientists said the new information, which the NIH released after it was sued by The Intercept, points to biosafety concerns, highlighting a general lack of oversight for research on pathogens and raising questions about what other information has not been publicly disclosed.

“As a virologist, I personally think creating chimeras of SARS-related bat coronaviruses that are thought to pose high risk to humans entails unacceptable risks,” said Jesse Bloom, who studies the evolution of viruses at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In a letter published in Science, Bloom and 17 other scientists argued that “greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data."

NIH officials Dr. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins have denied approving grants for such research through the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology, but a letter Wednesday from NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak to House Oversight Committee ranking Republican James Comer describes an unforeseen experimental result that calls the denials into question.

The letter shows that "NIH — and specifically, Collins, Fauci, and Tabak — lied to Congress, lied to the press, and lied to the public," Richard Ebright. The final progress report submitted by EcoHealth in August described a "limited experiment" in which a modified bat coronavirus made mice "sicker" than the original virus, Tabak told Comer. "As sometimes occurs in science, this was an unexpected result of the research, as opposed to something that the researchers set out to do."

NIH determined the proposed research didn't meet the standard for "enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential" because it wasn't shown these bat coronaviruses could infect humans. But "out of an abundance of caution" it required EcoHealth to "immediately" report "a one log increase in growth" if it happened, which would trigger a secondary review of the research by NIH.

EcoHealth didn't do that, Tabak wrote, and it now has five days to turn over "any and all unpublished data" from the research to NIH.

The letter repeatedly emphasizes the viruses studied under the EcoHealth grant and "subaward" to the Wuhan lab "could not have become SARS-CoV-2" because the "sequences of the viruses are genetically very distinct."

Reporting last month by The Intercept confirms that EcoHealth violated the NIH grant terms "at least four" times, Ebright tweeted earlier this month.

A top NIH official admitted in a Wednesday letter that U.S. taxpayers funded gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan and revealed that EcoHealth Alliance, the U.S. non-profit that funneled NIH money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was not transparent about the work it was doing. The revelation vindicates Republican senator Rand Paul, who got into heated exchanges with National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease director Anthony Fauci during his May and July testimonials before Congress over the gain-of-function question. At the second hearing, Paul accused Fauci of misleading Congress by denying that the U.S. had funded gain-of-function projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Media Accountability for Suppressing the Story
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1397334751774658562.html The lab leak hypothesis went from terrible racist conspiracy theory, to plausible, overnight. Without a shred of accountability from the MSM. HELLO?]

Immunity
New research indicates the 46 mutations found in the COVID-19 Omicron variant have rendered antibodies ineffective, accounting for the high number of re-infections and breakthrough cases.

Vaccine Passports
Demonstrations took place in Athens, Helsinki, London, Paris and Stockholm, by the thousands, to protest vaccine passports.