"Scientists from one of the country’s foremost infectious diseases institutes, the Kirby Institute at the University of NSW, have concluded a lab leak cannot be dismissed as a plausible theory for the pandemic’s origin"Link to Study Quote:Abstract
The origin of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is contentious. Most studies have focused on a zoonotic origin, but definitive evidence such as an intermediary animal host is lacking. We used an established risk analysis tool for differentiating natural and unnatural epidemics, the modified Grunow–Finke assessment tool (mGFT) to study the origin of SARS-COV-2. The mGFT scores 11 criteria to provide a likelihood of natural or unnatural origin. Using published literature and publicly available sources of information, we applied the mGFT to the origin of SARS-CoV-2. The mGFT scored 41/60 points (68%), with high inter-rater reliability (100%), indicating a greater likelihood of an unnatural than natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. This risk assessment cannot prove the origin of SARS-CoV-2 but shows that the possibility of a laboratory origin cannot be easily dismissed.
Quote:The first cases of COVID-19 were detected in a city that hosted two labs doing coronavirus research, the WIV and the Wuhan CDC. From October to November in 2019, a report obtained by NBC News (Anonymous) shows that cell phone signals and traffic declined in the area of WIV, pointing to a major event at the WIV laboratory (Anonymous), which suggests the institute was shut down with mass sterilization after an incident (Markson, 2021).
Similar intelligence was available during the anthrax lab leak in 1979 in Sverdlovsk, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with road closures and satellite signal intercepts suggesting the lab came under military control (The National Security Archive, 2001).
Additionally, several instances of poor biosecurity procedures were recorded at the WIV. Some scientists did not follow proper protective equipment protocols while handling bats and were bitten by them (Everington, 2021).
In early November 2019, some staff members from the institute were hospitalized with COVID-19-like symptoms (Markson, 2021).
Quote:A theoretical article published as a pre-print in 2022 showed “a peculiar pattern of unique restriction endonuclease recognition sites allowing efficient dis- and re-assembly of the viral genome characteristic of synthetic viruses” (Bruttel et al., 2023). The authors noted even spacing between the recognition sites in the genome of SARS-COV-2 and postulated that the restriction enzymes BsaI and BsmBI might have been used to assemble the virus.
Then, in January 2024, US Right to Know obtained further documents that aligned with the theoretical article, revealing that early drafts of the DEFUSE proposal intended to assemble synthetic coronaviruses in six segments and insert a furin cleavage site at the same site it exists in SARS-COV-2 (Kopp, 2024). The documents also included a budget item for BsmBI, one of the two restriction enzymes postulated in the 2022 theoretical article.
Other evidence that came to light in 2023 under Freedom of Information requests in the US further indicates that virologists who publicly stated that SARS-COV-2 had a natural origin simultaneously privately communicated doubts about this to each other, and discussed the fact that research at WIV could have led to the creation of SARS-COV-2 (Kopp, 2023). It is possible that US funding of some of the research at WIV was a motivation for the public messaging about natural origins to be promoted and the discussion of a lab accident to be suppressed.
As the esteemed Dr. David Berger says:
"No kidding"
Forum
Pages: 
China's covert biological weapons program (Read 159734 times)
