Investigators from the World Health Organization (WHO) looking into the origins of coronavirus in China have discovered signs the outbreak was much wider in Wuhan in December 2019 than previously thought, and are urgently seeking access to hundreds of thousands of blood samples from the city that China has not so far let them examine.
Key point. Let them examine.
Ben Embarek said the mission — which comprised 17 WHO scientists and 17 Chinese — had broadened the type of virus genetic material they examined from early coronavirus cases that first December. This allowed them to look at partial genetic samples, rather than just complete ones, he said. As a result, they were able to gather for the first time 13 different genetic sequences of the SARS-COV-2 virus from December 2019. The sequences, if examined with wider patient data in China across 2019, could provide valuable clues about the geography and timing of the outbreak before December.
Ben Embarek said: “Some of them are from the markets… Some of them are not linked to the markets,” which includes the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, thought to have played a role in the virus’ first spread.
The market theory was never enough to account for the virus. It may have played a role in the spread, but it didn’t explain the scope of it.
WHO is interpreting the data to mean that the virus had been active for some time, producing multiple strains, before exploding. It’s a legitimate theory, but it would suggest a fairly slow rollout for a virus that seems fairly infectious and has proven quite devastating. How else would you get multiple strains of the virus that are present before it breaks out in a very big way?
You develop them in a lab.
The media keeps telling us that’s a dangerous conspiracy theory and it’s entirely coincidental that the outbreak centered on an area with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Coincidences do happen. And one of the weak points of conspiracy theories is the insistence that nothing happens by chance and everything has significance. That’s where conspiratorial thinking takes the place of religion. That said, dismissing the reality that the lab was studying these viruses, that several of its researchers allegedly fell ill, that the virus and the lab are intertwined, requires high levels of denial. And that’s what the media is practicing.
How do you get multiple strains of an infectious virus in the wild that suddenly break out?
Here’s the US Embassy in Georgia with a fact sheet that will shortly be taken down by Biden’s people. No doubt.
The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.
Starting in at least 2016 – and with no indication of a stop prior to the COVID-19 outbreak – WIV researchers conducted experiments involving RaTG13, the bat coronavirus identified by the WIV in January 2020 as its closest sample to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2% similar). The WIV became a focal point for international coronavirus research after the 2003 SARS outbreak and has since studied animals including mice, bats, and pangolins.
Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military. The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.
If this was a weapons test, consider it quite a hit.