Mystery lab next to coronavirus epicentre

News Corp Australia ^ | January 29, 2020 11:37am | Jamie Seidel

[Zhang Fei]

It may just be a coincidence.

But the deadly coronavirus outbreak now sweeping the world began 30km from China’s most advanced viral research laboratories – the Wuhan Institute.

The Washington Times quoted former Israeli intelligence officer Dany Shoham as claiming The Wuhan Institute of Virology is part of a secret biological weapons program.

“Certain laboratories in the institute have probably been engaged, in terms of research and development, in Chinese (biological weapons), at least collaterally, yet not as a principal facility,” he asserted without corroborating evidence.

Mr Shoham says he was a Mossad lieutenant colonel specialist in biological and chemical warfare. But so far he’s the only apparent expert to make such a link.

Similar stories have begun circulating in China.

Only there, the claims — which are not censored under China’s strict information management regime — assert the virus is the result of a US germ warfare conspiracy.

“There is no evidence that it was a bioweapon, and any claims that it is wilfully spreads misinformation and is incredibly irresponsible,” warns MIT security studies professor Vipin Narang.

China already stands accused of breaching international treaties and engaging in biological weapons research.

“Information indicates that the People’s Republic of China engaged during the reporting period in biological activities with potential dual-use applications, which raises concerns regarding its compliance with the BWC,” the 2019 annual US State Department report on China’s arms treaty compliance warns.

“The United States has compliance concerns with respect to Chinese military medical institutions’ toxin research and development because of the potential dual-use applications and their potential as a biological threat.”

But Prof Narang doubts the 2019-nCoV virus is an escaped bioweapon: “It would be a terrible bioweapon because of blowback. A good bioweapon, in theory, has high lethality but low, not high, communicability.”

[Zhang Fei]

The Party is allowing Chinese chat app participants to talk about the possibility that the coronavirus is the product of US bioweapons labs. Sound like the latest effort to deflect from the Party's incompetence (whether in letting a virus loose from its own bioweapons labs, letting US bioweapons enter China, or being unable to contain the spread of the virus), while banking nationalistic fervor for any future military conflict with the US.

[kaehurowing]

What you can’t see is the part that is underground.

[adorno]

My first thought after the coronavirus outbreak was: population control and/or biological warfare.

Somebody was up to no good and lost control of their experiments.

OR........

Did they????

[RummyChick]

We had a china bat /sars virus living in a mouse at Chapel Hill in 2015. It did not kill the mouse at the time of the article

[grey_whiskers]

“There is no evidence that it was a bioweapon, and any claims that it is wilfully spreads misinformation and is incredibly irresponsible,” warns MIT security studies professor Vipin Narang.

The Chair of Chemisty at HARVARD just got nailed for Chinese funding under the table.

Let's look next door at MIT...

[Zhang Fei]

[But Prof Narang doubts the 2019-nCoV virus is an escaped bioweapon: “It would be a terrible bioweapon because of blowback. A good bioweapon, in theory, has high lethality but low, not high, communicability.”]

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This is BS. Chinese political leaders understand nuclear deterrence. They won’t launch a first strike against a nuclear power with the ability to retaliate by burning China’s major cities to the ground. But something like a bioweapon researched in China doesn’t carry the threat of retaliation. There is presumably a reason they placed the bioweapons lab in Wuhan, 650 miles away from Beijing, whereas Fort Detrick, former home of the US bioweapons program until the program was dismantled in the 60’s, was only 50 miles away from DC. Whereas Wuhan is host to an active bioweapons research center.

[plain talk]

Doesn’t sound like much of a bio weapon with a 3% kill rate.

[familyop]

There’s a possible case in Douglas County, KS.

[BrexitBen]

And, 350,000 Chinese exchange students at universities throughout the 50 states.

A prescription for possible disaster.

[RummyChick]

Chinese Spies got caught stealing coronovirus in Canada.

I have been talking every day about this Chapel Hill thing

A scientist on FR PMed and said basically if they wanted to create a virus it would be like what was done at Chapel Hill

---

or they could have stolen it and adapted it.

Chinese propaganda might be reading FR and going to blame Chapel Hill...just joking...sort of

[BenLurkin]

If it is a bio-weapon the purpose is not to kill people — it is to destroy economies.

[grey_whiskers]

https://twitter.com/ComfortablySmug/status/1222270687659876352

Two suspected cases in DC according to this tweet.

And according to FReeper CJ Wolf on another thread, one suspected in Fairfax, VA.

Katie bar the door.

[Black Agnes]

Bet they stop the china flights now...

[RummyChick]

Do we have any confirmed cases that are not Asian ethnicity?

[familyop]

There are a couple of scary numbers in this piece (13,500 divided by 30,000). Could be an error. Don’t know.

The Coronavirus Has Spooked Stocks. Here’s How Fast It Could Spread, According to 1 Model.
(Cascend model)
https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-fast-coronavirus-could-spread-stocks-china-51580239433?mod=hp_LATEST

[Blurb2350]

Wasn’t there speculation that the technology for creating novel corona viruses was developed and patented in the U.S., then stolen by a visiting Chinese researcher? And now the Chinese bioweapons lab either released it accidentally via their usual slapdash, careless habits, or intentionally as an experiment that got out of hand.

[BenLurkin]

You'll need a proper ID

[Black Agnes]

Yes, in Germany.

(I think)

[Jonty30]

That could mean 10 million Americans citizens. Maybe more, once the weapon is perfected.

[RummyChick]

We know he is from Germany. Got it from a coworker who had been to China.

I haven’t see where they have revealed his ethnicity.

Also waiting to see if you have genetic traits similar to Asians (such as Thalassemia) will you have similar weakness for the virus. This, of course, will not be known for a long time.