Lab leak goes mainstream in UK

British experts tried to dispel the Covid-lableak theory – weeks after they were told it might well be true. Sir Patrick Vallance was one of the scientists behind the document that nipped the debate over the origin of the virus in the bud.

We already knew what it was like for a long time. see the article from June '21 (with links to Jan Bonte and Nick Wade). But finally, more and more scientific "peer-reviewed" - for what that is still worth - studies are appearing that are tightening the net around the virologists, pharmaceutical companies and their funders (the governments).

For example, we often see encouraging signs, from crocuses to breakthroughs. One must be the straw that breaks the camel's back, you might say. The contours of the real story are becoming increasingly clear and still fit seamlessly into the first Nepflix scenario: an accident in a lab that leads to millions of deaths. Top executives and top scientists trying to launder everything. Well, "top"...

The English Telegraph has already put a toe in the water before but dares to be increasingly intelligent, although the article remains euphemistic. The newspaper goes along with the fact that the scientists handled the matter carefully so as not to kick the Chinese in the shins.

That the scientists themselves had the greatest interest in a cover-up because otherwise they (also by the Chinese) will be mercilessly thrown in front of the bus, together with their entire research program, that is not yet a consideration. That their criminal behavior and irresponsible circumvention of the law has led to death by guilt on many thousands (tens, a hundred-...?) – that is not discussed. The ingredients are in the article but the picture of the end product is missing.

You might think that the virus toppers are tactically evading their own guilt, but given their haughtiness, that doesn't even have to be the case. It may very well be that that thought does not even occur to their head. After all, they are not criminals! The Marie Antoinettes of our time: "But we immediately had a test and a vaccine for them!

Below is the translation of the English newspaper article.

(Photo Caption: Sir Patrick Vallance helped publish an article stating that the pandemic was caused by zoonosis, a natural animal-to-human infection.)

Top scientists, including Sir Patrick Vallance, had been informed that Covid-19 might have evolved in laboratory animals, but collaborated on a paper that debunked the lableak theory, it has emerged.

The article, "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2," published in Nature Medicine in March 2020, argued that a natural infection by an animal caused the pandemic. He played a decisive role in stifling the debate about the origin of the virus.

However, recently released emails from early 2020 show that in the weeks leading up to publication, the authors had lengthy discussions with experts including Sir Patrick and Sir Jeremy Farrar, the head of the Wellcome Trust. In those discussions, the experts were advised that the unusual traits seen in Covid-19 could have evolved in both laboratory animals and in the wild. They were also warned that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) had been researching bat coronaviruses at a worrying level of biosecurity.

However, by the time the article was published, all references to biosecurity issues in Wuhan had been removed, and the authors stated that the virus was unlikely to evolve in a laboratory.

Since the publication of the document, questions have been raised about its drafting and formulation. The paper's lead author, Professor Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, had previously told his colleagues that features of the virus looked like they had been developed in a laboratory.

However, the article makes no mention of this.

'Important to remain unbiased'

Dr Jeremy Farrar, the director of Wellcome, said of the new emails, which were released under a freedom of information request: "It is important that we understand how all pathogens arise so that we can prevent future pandemics.

"In my opinion, the scientific evidence continues to indicate that SARS-CoV-2 passes from animals to humans as the most likely scenario.

"However, as efforts to gather evidence continue, it is important to maintain an open mind and work together internationally to understand the origins of Covid and variant strains – to end this pandemic and reduce the risks of future events."

A spokesman for the Government Office for Science said: "The government's Chief Scientific Adviser ensures that policies and decisions are based on the best scientific evidence.

"The GCSA promotes full transparency and an open exchange of ideas and scientific opinions, as reflected in the email exchange."

The emails were released following a FOI request from James Tobias, a freelance journalist.

More reason to believe that scientists weren't trying to upset China

In March 2020, just days before Britain entered its first Covid lockdown, an influential scientific paper was published in the journal Nature Medicine. The article, titled "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" argued that the new deadly virus that swept the world was of natural origin and had jumped from animals to humans.

Covid had surfaced just miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) where scientists collected and manipulated coronaviruses from bats, leading to widespread speculation that a deadly experiment could have leaked from a lab. After the research article was published, it stopped serious research into laboratory theory in fact.

Now, new emails show that some authors had indeed suspected a laboratory leak and discussed it with leading scientists such as Sir Patrick Vallance and Sir Jeremy in the weeks before publication. In an email chain discussing the original design, one of the authors even admitted that the virus would look the same, whether it had evolved naturally or in lab mice in a process known as "serial passaging." In an Email dated February 8, 2020, Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane University pointed out that similar effects had been observed in transmitting bird flu in laboratory chickens.

By the time the paper was published, the authors rejected the possibility, concluding: "Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construction or deliberately manipulated virus. One of the reasons the authors gave in the article for dropping the laboratory theory was that Covid-19 contained sugars, known as "o-glycans," which help the immune system. In the Nature Medicine article, they said this showed that the virus could not be a laboratory creation.

However, they failed to point out that if the virus had evolved in laboratory animals, it would also contain o-glycans, a fact they had discussed in the emails. In fact, Sir Patrick said in the emails that the "glycan point" in the article could be used as "extra weight against a passage origin".

The original design also pointed out that research to change Sars-like batronaviruses has been taking place in Wuhan for many years at a dangerous level of biosecurity — a fact that was later removed from the final document.

In an email exchange, Sir Jeremy even warned that the wuhan investigation resembled the "Wild West".

The released email will give more fuel to the allegations that eminent scientists publicly halted research into a laboratory leak so as not to offend China, while privately believing it was possible.

Photo caption to photo of the lab: Covid has surfaced just a few kilometers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) where scientists have collected and manipulated coronaviruses from bats.

In the recently released email chain, Prof. Ron Fouchier, a Dutch neurologist, warned that even investigating a laboratory leak could harm Chinese research. "An accusation that (Covid-19) could have been made by humans and put into the environment (accidentally or intentionally) would have to be supported by strong data, beyond a reasonable doubt," he warned.

"It is good that this possibility has been discussed in detail with a team of experts. But a further debate on such allegations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and unnecessarily harm science in general and science in China in particular."

Many scientists now agree that a laboratory leak is highly plausible, but most of the supporting evidence was found by hackers and "infamous" scientists who were branded as conspiracy theorists because they questioned the accepted narrative.

The latest e-mail released shows that scientists who rejected a laboratory leak did accept behind closed doors that it was a possibility. In an email dated February 8, Professor Edward Holmes, one of the authors of the Nature Medicine article, from the University of Sydney, acknowledged that many people believed the virus had leaked from the Wuhan lab.

He wrote: "Since the beginning of this outbreak, there have been suggestions that the virus has escaped from the Wuhan laboratory, if only because of the coincidence of the place where the outbreak occurred and the location of the laboratory.

"I do a lot of work in China and I can tell you that many people there believe this and believe they are being lied to."

Another post of the same date, from Prof. Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, said it would be wrong to reject a lab leak "outright." He wrote: "The transmission of Sars live coronaviruses has been happening for several years and more specifically in Wuhan under BSL-2 conditions."

BSL-2 laboratories are used to study moderately risky infectious agents or toxins such as salmonella. Serious diseases should be treated in BSL-3 or 4 laboratories. Evidence has shown that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) imported batronaviruses from areas of China where the viruses are closest to Covid-19.

(Lab photo caption: Experts were also warned that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was conducting research on bat coronaviruses at a worrisome level of biosecurity.)

The institute had applied for funding to manipulate viruses by inserting a furin cleavage site (FCS) that makes Covid-19 so contagious in humans. A recent report by the U.S. Senate Committee concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic was "more than likely" the result of a laboratory accident, arguing that no candidate for an animal intermediate host had ever been found.

[note: an "intermediate host" is not 1 animal but an animal species that first spreads the disease among the species. Given the point distribution from Wuhan, that did not happen.]

In the emails, Sir Jeremy said the aim of the talks was to reach a consensus and "prepare a respected statement to frame the debate, before that debate gets out of hand with potentially very damaging consequences".

The email chain also involved Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), an organization that funded the research at the Wuhan lab.

To date, the "Proximal origin" paper has been viewed and cited more than 5.7 million times in 2,627 later papers.