AP Photo of doctor studying COVID-19
Posted on 02/27/2020 12:51:48 PM PST by SeekAndFind
As the Wuhan coronavirus continues to spread like wildfire across the globe, a National Taiwan University (NTU) professor on Saturday (Feb. 22) said the virus is likely man-made, based on its unusual structure.
At a seminar on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) hosted by the Taiwan Public Health Association at NTU, Fang Chi-tai (方啟泰), a professor at NTU's College of Public Health, addressed the many theories circulating that the virus somehow leaked from or was released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology biosafety level 4 laboratory (BSL-4 Lab). He said that what is known is that there are many deadly viruses being researched in the facility, such as SARS and Ebola, and that China's track record with safety standards and laboratory management has been questioned in the past.
Fang said that COVID-19 is 96 percent similar to the bat virus RaTG13, which is known to be housed at the lab. Fang said that this in itself is not a smoking gun, as a genetic similarity of 99 percent would be required to declare them to be the same.
He said that a French team investigating COVID-19 had found that the key difference between RaTG13 and COVID-19 was that the latter has four additional amino acids not found in any other coronaviruses. Fang said that these four amino acids make the disease easier to transmit.
Fang said that the French team's findings had led some in the scientific community to speculate that Chinese scientists thought the SARS outbreak 17 years ago was too easy to deal with, so they developed an "upgraded version." He said that with modern technology, such an "upgrade" is theoretically possible.
The professor said that viruses normally only have small mutations in the form of singular changes in natural conditions. He asserted that in nature, it is "unlikely to have four amino acids added at once."
Fang concluded, "Therefore, from an academic point of view, it is indeed possible that the amino acids were added to COVID-19 in the lab by humans." He said that it is also still possible that this occurred in nature but that "the chances are very slim."
Fang stressed that the mutations found in the novel coronavirus are "unusual in an academic sense." He asserted that "It is indeed possible that it is a man-made product."
He said that it would be critical to conduct an internal investigation of the records at BSL-4 Lab. However, given the opaque nature of the current regime in Beijing, he said such a public inquest into the lab's records looks highly unlikely in the near future.
On the positive side, Fang said that if it is an artificially generated virus, it means it does not occur naturally in the ecosystem. Therefore, after the last patient is cured, it should not become a seasonal illness such as the flu, which is generated naturally in the environment.
However, renowned Taiwanese-American professor Ching Lin on Feb. 1 refuted a similar theory being circulated that it was "bioweapon" created by the U.S., saying the addition of the aforementioned four amino acids is not as "critical" as some in the Chinese media had claimed.
Lin also cast doubt on the credibility of the paper (Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag) being cited in the conspiracy theories. He first suggested that the platform bioRxiv, on which the paper was published, is untrustworthy as most of the literature it posts does not undergo peer review.
He also noted that the four insertions in the spike glycoproteins that Indian authors described as unique to COVID-19 are not unusual in the results for pBLAST (an algorithm for comparing primary biological sequence information).
FROM THE EPOCH TIMES:
“There are so many questions about the origins of the virus because the Chinese government didn’t provide enough transparency regarding the early investigation of the outbreak,” said Sean Lin, a former virology researcher for the U.S. Army.
Chief among these questions is where the outbreak originated.
While Chinese officials have suspected the birthplace of the outbreak to be the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a wild animal and seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, recent developments cast doubt on that claim.
A Jan. 24 study by a group of Chinese researchers published in The Lancet medical journal analyzed the first 41 cases of coronavirus patients in Wuhan and found that 14 out of those patients had no link to the seafood market.
Crucially, the researchers could not find an “epidemiological link” between the first patient, who became ill on Dec. 1, 2019, and later patients. That date also contradicts reports from Chinese health authorities, who said the first patient exhibited symptoms on Dec. 8, 2019.
One of the study’s authors later confirmed to the BBC that the first patient was a man in his 70s who was bedridden after suffering a stroke. He didn’t have a connection to the market—a revelation that opens up the possibility that the virus may have spread elsewhere before entering the market.
A recent study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, by a group of researchers affiliated with China’s Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Institute for Brain Research suggested that the coronavirus was introduced from outside the market, then rapidly expanded inside the crowded facility in early December 2019 before spreading to the whole city.
Based on an analysis of the virus’s genome data, the researchers postulated that the virus began spreading from person to person in early December, or possibly even in late November.
“The problem is that the Chinese government so far has not shown any testing result of any animal sample collected in Wuhan.
“So you cannot draw a clear understanding of how the bat coronavirus … jumped to humans.”
Lin says such to label the idea that it came from an external source as “conspiracy theory” has no place in the scientific inquiry.
“When people question the origin, it doesn’t mean it’s a conspiracy theory. People just don’t know enough about how the virus mutated,” Lin said, adding there are many questions yet to be resolved.
And the “coincidence” of China’s only BSL-4 lab located in Wuhan.
Plus, the Wuhan Center For Disease Control (WCDC ) is even closer ( just a few hundred meters away ) to the Huanan Seafood Market.
“On the positive side, Fang said that if it is an artificially generated virus, it means it does not occur naturally in the ecosystem. Therefore, after the last patient is cured, it should not become a seasonal illness such as the flu, which is generated naturally in the environment.”
CHINA SHOULD BE PUNISHED, YOU CAN TRACK EVERYTHING BACK TO THEM, THE BLACK DEATH, 1918, SARS, COVID-19.
IT’S TIME THEY PAY A PRICE
No one should Pooh-Pooh that theory!
China’s Top Performing Stock Is a Wuhan Fever-Detector Maker
The most likely scenario is that the Bio lab was researching infected bats and somebody got bit. So, yes, it likely came from the lab, but via the bats who live 500 miles from the lab. There was a strong corona research program going on in the lab which is why they had roughly 600 bats.
Another problem is that the Chinese labs regularly sell their lab animals for food rather than disposing of them as is the policy. I read this is a huge problem as the scientists get cash for the bats but are likely paid a salary like they live in some communist utopia. It’s hard to buy an iPhone on utopian according-to-your-need dollars.
Source?
One would think it would be possible to manufacture a cure for it then.
You know..reverse engineer it and all that.
Any experts here that could try and explain that to me?
.
Caps lock is only punishing the people that read your comment, not the Chinese.
The first link is behind a paywall.
The next link has to do with humane treatment of lab animals but makes no mention of selling off lab animals for food.
And the last is a rehash of the OP.
I think the first place I heard this was China Uncensored.
But here is a Bing Search.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=chinese+labs+selling+lab+animals+for+food&form=EDGNB3&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&msnews=1&plvar=0&refig=370cd14953834517d4e6bfd21613e735
Here is a search from YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chinese+sceintists+selling+lab+animals+for+food
The first article (allowed reading on first view) and the third article speak to the subject:
“Instead of properly disposing of infected animals by cremation, as the law requires, they sell them on the side to make a little extra cash. Or, in some cases, a lot of extra cash. One Beijing researcher, now in jail, made the equivalent of a million dollars selling monkeys and rats on the live animal market, whence they likely wound up in someone’s stomach.”
Guess it helps to read beyond the headlines.
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