It’s the Lab! WHO Report Unintentionally Supports Laboratory Origin of Covid-19

It’s the Lab!:  WHO Report Unintentionally Supports Laboratory Origin of Covid-19

The slapdash March 30,2021 World Health Organization report (“WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part ) investigating the source of the Covid-19 pandemic is a year too late in its initiation and notably short (28 days) in its deliberation.  According to its own WHO website, all hypotheses “remain open,” including the possible origination of the SARS-Cov-2 virus from a lab.

The report itself takes 120 pages to seemingly deny everything and say nothing. And yet, there are “tells” in this report—linguistic, analytical, informational, and cultural markers every bit as revealing as genetic markers—as to the origin of  the virus.  The most revealing of these, the possible smoking gun is buried on page 119 out of 120:  The lab under suspicion, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), moved its operations on December 2, 2019, directly coinciding with the time of the first admitted SARS-CoV-2 exposures, “to a new location near the Huanan market.”   This same market also happened to be the first major identified vector of infection in the initial Covid-19 outbreak in China. 

This extremely delicate and lengthy moving process for regular labs (much less high-security biolabs) likely started months previous to the official move date.  This move was an accident waiting to happen given WIV’s history of “shoddy” bio-security and inadequately trained technicians documented in a January 19, 2018 cable by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Another possibility, just as likely given the Chinese government’s secretive behavior, is that the move was conducted to cover up evidence of a known lab-leak. What we do know is that the team involved in creating the WHO report was not given access to important original data, nor allowed to interview lab workers, nor conduct any kind of comprehensive direct forensic analysis of lab samples

Even the official assessments of the current U.S. presidential administration, reported in a Washington Post March 30, 2021 National Security article, point to lab-leak evidence in direct contradiction to the text on p. 119 of the WHO report which claims “no reporting (emphasis added) of Covid-19 compatible respiratory illness… (and) no serological evidence of infection in (lab) workers”:

Officially, the Biden administration is open to the possibility of a lab leak. A State Department document, published five days before Trump left office, and which has not been retracted, alleged that “several researchers” at the lab became sick in the fall of 2019 with covid-like symptoms, before the first identified case of the disease, and claimed that the lab “has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.” (emphasis added)

Questions of access and contradiction notwithstanding, what is not being said in this report, what is spoken about in partial terms, and what is buried in this WHO report in plain sight strongly suggest that a lab-origin hypothesis is indeed the strongest rather than the weakest hypothesis. 

There is plenty of incentive in both official Western and Eastern cultures to place responsibility and origin of the Covid-19 pandemic elsewhere.  In the face of embarrassing and inconvenient truths, official Eastern cultures tend to “save face,” deliberately omitting condemning information and dispersing responsibility. This approach leaves “bread crumbs” of indirect and partial information that can be pieced together to form a logical and likely picture of events. Official Western cultures tend to lie outright and deny responsibility.  This is done by touting evidence-free “expert opinion”, bullying others with charges of “conspiracy,” or simply creating a zone of silence around the issue.  This approach is meant to overwhelm people and create muddled and contradictory information at odds with plain facts.   

The WHO report is a combination of these Eastern and Western tendencies running up against each other.  Ironically, it is precisely this incompatibility of cultural approaches to mistruth in this WHO report that aids our search for truth in the matter. 

This investigative probe will use a rigorous forensics into the WHO report itself to shred both conventional orthodoxy and conspiratorial lies and violence aimed at pinning blame for the Covid-19 pandemic on Asian-looking people.  Incisive logical, scientific, geo-political, and cultural-linguistic analysis of this WHO report all point to the same damning conclusion:  This SARS-CoV-2 virus (the one that produces Covid-19) is a joint product, technologically supported and paid for by the U.S. and made (like most U.S. goods) in China.  

Why the Lab Leak hypothesis is the most likely

Given available evidence, the SARS-CoV-2 virus was most likely created, tested, and leaked by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and/or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  This research was conducted across the street from the first major identified outbreak in Wuhan in collaboration with U.S. funding and technology, aided by a lifting of the U.S. 2014-2017 ban of dangerous “gain-of-function” research (GoFR).  GoFR is specifically and purposely aimed at producing super-microbes that are more adapted to survival in humans, more transmissible, more virulent (disease-causing), and more apt to reproduce inside the body.    

Despite the WHO report’s p. 119 proclamations that lab breaches are “rare” and that the involved Chinese labs were “well managed,” high-security bio-labs have an all-too-common history of biosecurity lapses.  “Introduction (of SARS-CoV-2) through a laboratory incident” (WHO, p. 118) is the simplest, most direct explanation given the evidence supplied in the report and the recent actual history of such accidents, not only in China (where twice the SARS virus escaped a Beijing lab and infected other people), but in the U.S. as well: 

Since 2007, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has repeatedly warned that the proliferation of high-containment biosafety level 3 and level 4 labs in the United States and around the world is increasing the risk of dangerous viruses, bacteria or toxins being intentionally or unintentionally released from the facilities. Over the years, Congress has held multiple hearings examining numerous serious incidents in elite U.S. labs, including mishaps with anthrax, deadly smallpox and Ebola viruses and dangerous strains of avian influenza.

So we know this “escape from a lab” possibility is not a hypothetical threat.  It is already a proven reality, in fact, a “disturbing regularity.” 

The Champions of Dumb and Dangerous Research

Yes, what COULD go wrong about intentionally producing human-infecting super-bugs, so you can “study” them?  As summarized by Rutgers University molecular biologist and biosecurity expert, Richard Ebright:  “The only impact of this work is the creation, in a lab, of a new, non-natural risk.”  “A scientific symposium in Germany in December 2014 on biosafety and biosecurity concluded that GoFR “was a threat to public health in two ways”:

First, because the knowledge of how to tweak an influenza virus into a potential pandemic pathogen (PPP) could be used by bioterrorists or for biological warfare purposes. Second, because the tweaked viruses could escape (or could be stolen) from the laboratory and could cause a pandemic. 

Right around that same time GoFR was banned by the U.S. Obama administration, only to be resumed again in December 2017 under the U.S. Trump administration. 

Given the growing scientific body against GoFR, what kind of reckless and unethical fools would do GoFR?  Enter the three amigos— Peter Daszak (the bagman), Ralph Baric (the tech guy), and Shi Zhengli (the batwoman).  Peter Daszak was the British zoologist and president of the U.S.-based EcoHealth Alliance organization, which channeled funds and collaborated with the Shi Zhengli and WIV gain-of-function bat coronavirus research.  Shi Zhengli (“batwoman” is a celebrity nickname actually given to her for her research on viruses and exotic bat species), is a long-time co-researcher with Ralph Baric. 

Ralph Baric, an internationally known gain-of-function researcher from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (yes, the same lab with proven bio-security breaches), has pioneered some of the more exotic and dangerous gain-of-function technologies including such “interesting” experiments (alongside Shi Zhengli) in 2015 as “inserting a coronavirus spike-like protein into inactivated HIV”This was done for the purposes of creating synthetically manufactured pseudoviruses to better infect humans by using humans’ own enzymes.  Tellingly, this foundational technology supported recent 2019 research in a Beijing lab in which a new furin site (think spike protein attaching and slicing into a cell) was inserted into a live chicken coronavirus.  Sound familiar?

Who should show up as the only U.S. delegate on the international team to lead the WHO “investigation” to assess the SARS-CoV-2 origins?:  Peter DaszakYes, you guessed it; this is the same fellow who helped fund Shi Zhengli and the Wuhan labs and promote the studies under investigation.  This rather blatant conflict of interest along with the “tightly choreographed format of the field research” led notable organizations like the AIDS Healthcare Foundation to protest and criticize the WHO report as hopelessly compromised. 

And yet, it is precisely this conflicted impulse to cover up evidence that creates identifiable slips that lend weight to not only a lab leak hypothesis but a lab leak conclusion

Three of the Four Official Hypotheses as to the SARS-CoV-2 Origin are Scientific Garbage

Bret Weinstein, mainstream evolutionary biologist, places the lab origination of SARS-CoV-2 likelihood at 90+% based on how the virus has acted once it has escaped.  Notably the SARS-CoV-2 virus is temperature sensitive.  According to biotech entrepreneur and genomicist, Yuri Deigin, Temperature sensitivity generally occurs only after a series of substantial laboratory manipulations and selections.”  (“Lab Made? CoV2 Genealogy Through The Lens of Gain-of-Function Research”)

SARS-CoV-2 also exhibits an aversion to sunlight, outdoor air, heat, and humidity, among other conditions and its lack of success in healthy people, athletes, and young people all point to a lab-manufactured virus (where the conditions include dry, room-temperature, indoor ventilation, among caged, non-exercising adult mammals).

Looking not only at the evidence for a lab leaked virus, but the lack of evidence for the other possible explanations, it is very difficult to intelligently oppose Dr. Weinstein’s assessment. 

There are four official hypotheses in the WHO report.  All but the Lab Leak or “lab incident” hypothesis can be disposed of with a high degree of confidence using the report’s own reasoning and articulated evidence (or lack of evidence).  These hypotheses are summarized in the WHO report’s introduction on p. 9:

  1. Direct (natural) interspecies animal-to-human transmission (zoonotic spillover), considered in the report to be “possible-to-likely.”
  2. (Natural) animal-to-intermediate-host-to-human transmission (where an intermediate animal who becomes an incubating “reservoir” for the virus), considered in the report to be “likely-to-very-likely.”
  3. Introduction and transmission through cold/food chain products, considered in the report to be “possible.” 
  4. Introduction through a laboratory incident, considered to be “extremely unlikely.”

Data “Tells” and the Linguistic “Tells”

First, the WHO report simply leaves out the important modifier “natural”.  This is very significant, because these hypotheses technically allow for the artificial, human-generated creation and transmission of an interspecies pandemic virus. This artificial creation and transmission is far more likely given available evidence.  In fact not a single bit of evidence has been presented to date that SARS-CoV-2 originated in any animal naturally or was transmitted through any natural process. 

The U.S. Center for Disease Control admits, updated March 25, 2021 that “there is no evidence that animals play a significant role is spreading SARS-CoV-2” and yet, ironically, this same webpage confirms that Covid-19 “can spread from people to animals.”  In other words, we humans are the reservoir of the Covid-19 virus mutating to infect other species, not the other way around (WHO report, p. 115)!  Combined this with the knowledge that gain-of-function research has already produced human super-viruses, the Lab Leak conclusion becomes increasingly inescapable.

This WHO “Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2” report itself reinforces this complete lack of evidence of natural animal inception and transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on page 8:

However the presence of SARS-CoV-2 has not been detected through sampling and testing of bats or of wildlife across China.  More then 80,000 wildlife, livestock, and poultry samples were collected from 31 provinces  in China and no positive result was identified for SARS-CoV-2 antibody or nucleic acid before or after (emphasis added) the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in China.

There is evidence that some domesticated wildlife the products of which were sold in the market are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 but none of the animal products sampled in the market tested positive in this study (emphasis added). 

So there is zero evidence of wild or domestic natural animal inception and transmission of the virus responsible for Covid-19  There is zero evidence of inception and transmission in animal products in markets located around the earliest outbreaks.  And it would take “several decades of evolutionary space” (WHO report, 113) for the 96.2% identical RaTG13 bat coronavirus (worked on by Shi Zhengli in the Wuhan virus labs next to the first major outbreaks) to naturally evolve into the SARS-CoV-2 virus.  But we already know that this evolution can be sped up through artificial means whereupon a 2.1% change (more than half the difference) could be achieved in months, rather than decades, using “in vitro” serial passage lab methods:

First, in vitro mutation speeds (i.e. per unit of time) are much higher, as you can passage cells much more often than infect new animals. As SARS and MERS in vitro experiments showed, significant mutations might be observed after only a few passages. For example, the 2004 paper reported that only after 600 passages there already was a 2.1% difference in the genomic sequences of spike proteins between the original strain and its progeny… Moreover, in the presence of some antiviral compounds, such as nucleoside analogs (e.g. ribavirin or remdesivir), mutation rates in RNA viruses can increase even further.

The third hypothesis, “Introduction and transmission through cold/food chain products,” can also be rather easily dismissed.  Though the SARS-CoV-2 virus can appear to survive on even frozen meat products for weeks, it is “extremely unlikely” such a virus would retain its infectivity.

“I would say it’s extremely, extremely unlikely the virus would have spread through that type of route,” says Lawrence Young at the University of Warwick, UK, who specialises in human virology…. The reason why, according to Young, is that SARS-CoV-2 is an enveloped virus, meaning it is covered with a fatty, lipid membrane that it uses to infect human cells. This membrane is very vulnerable to cycles of freezing and thawing, as can happen during the transit and sale of frozen food. Stripped of this envelope, such viruses cannot infect people.

It strains credibility that an unknown mutation occurred in nature among wild and domestic animals, snuck into humans without detection or evidence of animal origin, and then re-infected animals after human contact. Again all evidence, direct and indirect, circumstantial and substantive, intuitive and logical points to the same conclusion:  SARS-CoV-2 was created in a lab, was leaked, and infected the very humans it was designed to infect.

Second, no one is claiming, least of all me, that this SARS-CoV-2 virus was artificially synthesized “whole cloth” in a lab.  That event would be extremely unlikely.  The Lab Leak claim involves naturally-originated viruses which are collected and intentionally genetically manipulated and combined to create a novel super-virus, a scientific process with a long and demonstrated concrete history of “success” (if you can call it that). 

In fact, according to Deigin, this “infectious clone technology” has gotten so effective, so automated, and so fast that “creating a synthetic CoV2 via the (available) technology would be in reach of even a grad student.”  And it can all be done “without leaving a trace.”

The SARS-CoV-2 super-viruses were likely extracted artificially from live animals (i.e. bats and pangolins), and cultivated within live animals (so-called “in vivo” experimentation) and mutated through “in vitro” processes, in order to grow them, speed evolution, and test the effects of the virus. This hypothesis #2 is “likely to very likely” if this process of animal-to-intermediary-to-human is cultivated in a lab.  But that is not the impression this WHO report leaves you with:  It implies natural cultivation and transmission, while presenting literally zero evidence for that.

In short, it is likely the SARS-CoV-2 gain-of-function researchers took the part of a bat coronavirus that made it highly transmissible in humans.  They combined it with a  section of a pangolin virus that made it exceedingly attachable to humans.  Finally, researchers combined that with an HIV-like amino acid sequence to amplify its attachment and ability to maximally invade human cells. 

Looking at the gene sequencing, the likely artificial synthesis of the SARS-Cov-2 virus appears to involve the combination of three amino-acid sequences to create a hyper-transmissible and pathogenic super-microbe:  1) An RaTG13 bat SARS Coronavirus backbone (for better transmissibility) which is 96.2% identical to the SARS-CoV-2, 2) spliced with a pangolin binding site (99% identical to the SARS-CoV-2 binding site) which allows for better attachment on human ACE2 receptors in the lungs and elsewhere, 3) combined with an HIV-like amino-acid insertion/mutation that can increase attachment 1,000 fold and promotes membrane-splitting and entrance into human cells, where it can reproduce more efficiently. 

The WHO report on page 83 flat-out admits “some researchers thought these observations served as evidence that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in the (artificial) recombination” of the bat and pangolin strains, but deflects this with an highly unlikely alternative: “coincidental convergent evolution.”  What respective odds would you place on those two possibilities?

By the way, what is a pangolin?  Pangolins, one of nature’s strangest, most prehistoric-looking creatures, are mammals covered in fingernail-like scales.  They are built for survival in almost any terrain.  That is perhaps why they are illegally hunted for the black market and why they can carry infections without dying. What do they share with institutions who have created a pandemic and don’t want to take responsibility?  They are both doing whatever they can to survive.

Post-Note.  Where and When Did the Covid-19 Pandemic Start? 

The “official story” propagated by the Chinese government and largely accepted by the WHO report, is that Covid-19 may have started in Wuhan amid the surrounding animal markets in early December 2019.  All actual scientific proof indicates an earlier date and source—likely the 2019 World Military Games, which took place from October 17-26.  The athletic venues for these Games were also located very close to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan CDC during its ostensible super-virus, gain-of-function experiments. The closing ceremonies of the Games, happened in a 58,000 capacity Wuhan stadium in what could easily have been a super-spreader event.  This stadium was located just kilometers away from the relevant Chinese research facilities, which were made all the more vulnerable because they were in the process of moving.    

How do we know this?   

  1. There is world-wide evidence of positive tests for SARS-CoV-2 pre- and mid-December, in countries outside China.  The WHO Report even admits this on its page 83, “Evidence of early occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 from other studies”:

“Some of the suspected positive samples [from around the world] were detected even earlier than the first case in Wuhan”

  • Positive sewage samples of SARS-CoV-2 samples were found in Northern Italy from mid-December and in Brazil from late November, 2019.
  • “A serological survey among participants in a lung cancer screening programme described finding a few persons with neutralizing antibodies as early as October 2019 (in Northern Italy).”
  • In France, serological studies found a “significant increase in prevalence of neutralizing antibodies in mid-December.”
  • A U.S. serological study of blood donations from nine states with 106 positive samples between mid-December and mid-January.  (Side note:  The author in California was affected mildly and some friends gravely with a Covid-19-like disease late December 2019 and early January 2020.)
  • A Prospect Magazine investigative piece referenced reports from European athletes of the Games “and scores of athletes from other nations” about experiencing Covid-19 like symptoms upon their returns home, including a particularly dramatic one from an Italian fencer, Matteo Tagliariol, who mentioned his team “almost all got sick” and that he had a high fever and could not breathe well.  It took three weeks for him to recover with lingering effects.   
  • The WHO report mentions on pg. 29 the 2019 World Military Games as a possible source of Covid-19, and merely says: “Consideration should be given to further joint review of the data on respiratory illness from the on-site clinics at the Military Games in October 2019” (indicating that investigators were not allowed access to that data).  Instead the report on the same page includes some unrealistically low and white-washed numbers which mention only a few cases of sickness at mass international gatherings in Wuhan during that time.
  • An official Chinese ministry spokesperson attempted to deflect inquiry and possible blame by issuing the counter-narrative that the U.S. military and U.S. military personnel entering the country were to blame for the Covid-19 epidemic. 
  • On a map of page 15 of the WHO report, the Wuhan Institute of Virology is “moved” far from its original location, even though Google Maps still lists it as very much in the heart of the active Covid-19 arena.  

What we can learn?

  • We have got to get past our love affair with so-called “high” technology.  It can be, and has been, used for good or ill.  Gain-of-function is just one example, that only seems to create a downside.  This research should be banned and stay banned.  We don’t need to be our own destructive “gods.”  Technology can be used in a “good” way to undo the damage of destructive or deceptive uses of technology.  We all need to work together to learn how to do this better.
  • Critical media literacy is crucial.  All the sources I mention in this article are open, public sources of high-quality information used for analysis and testing of various truth claims.  We don’t need to trust experts who are compromised, and we don’t even need to trust science that is compromised.  We can use the best information, references, and a commitment to accountability to surround a problem and working together not only to find the deeper truth but a healthier alternative.
  • We need to rediscover responsibility.  Instead of being trapped in conventional narratives of fear and obedience (“trust the experts”), or conspiracy-driven narratives of ignorance passed off as “freedom” (“do whatever you want”), it is time we recognize we do have an obligation to each other, to be responsible, to be truthful, and to work for a world that works for all of us as well as the Earth herself.    
  • Mother Nature has been around for over 4 billion years, and maybe she knows a thing or two.  Trust the wisdom of nature.  Look to its processes to find out what may be the healthiest choices to make, and look at what does not correspond with nature to determine what may be most destructive or unhealthy.  It is high time we stop trying to best and beat Mother Nature and learn from her and work with her.  Period. 
  • We can thrive in a new golden age, if we are willing to do all the above and acknowledge and embrace the power and dignity of our own spirituality and morality that goes beyond mere material advantage in the world.  What would non-material benefit and advantage look like?  What would communities that care for each other act like?  What would the “good life” become in a world where competitive manipulation is replaced by co-creation?   

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