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.”

[Cold Heart]

Wounding was a military term for incapacitating your enemy. A wound soldier takes more work to handle than a dead one.

[Cold Heart]

Same concept, use a different weapon if you want a different outcome.

[wastedyears]

Off topic, but if it’s a fuel air bomb, why did it look like a nuke, vaporizing everything?

[Zhang Fei]

[Off topic, but if it’s a fuel air bomb, why did it look like a nuke, vaporizing everything?]

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I threw that in as a joke. I don’t think something like that is likely. But Hollywood pyrotechnics are also often an exaggeration of the real thing.

[Black Agnes]

Very little.

One of my first tinfoil random thoughts was ‘are there doomers in china too?’

[Black Agnes]

Not to mention ongoing issues for possibly the rest of their life. Lung function issues post infection might be a real thing. Now imagine that’s a ‘thing’ with 25% of your military and they can no longer function in combat...hmmm...