Fri, Feb 11, 2022 page8

• EDITORIAL: Fresh clues point to Wuhan lab leak

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  Incredibly, more than two years on from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is still no explanation for the origins of the virus that is universally agreed to. Nobody is more pleased at this state of affairs than the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has mounted a massive propaganda operation to cover up its culpability for the global health crisis.

  Fortunately, cover-ups are increasingly difficult to pull off in the age of the Internet. Paper files that would have previously found their way into the shredder or become “lost” down the back of a filing cabinet are now recorded for posterity in e-mail trails and open-source online data.

  In the case of COVID-19, the evidence increasingly points toward not only an accidental lab leak from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, but also collusion between the CCP and a number of influential international scientists to cover up controversial “gain of function” research into coronaviruses.

  The latest piece of the jigsaw to snap into place is a chance finding by a team of Hungarian scientists from the University of Veterinary Medicine and Lorand University, described in a paper published on Monday.

  The bioinformatics specialists said they have discovered a previously unknown strain of SARS-CoV-2 after examining genetic data from soil samples collected from Antarctica, which became contaminated with the virus after the samples were sent to a laboratory in Shanghai for analysis in December, 2019. The laboratory, Sangon Biotech, is known to be used by the Wuhan institute for DNA sequencing.

  The newly discovered early strain contains DNA from African green monkeys and Chinese hamsters, which are frequently used to study coronaviruses in a laboratory setting. This suggests that the virus might have been grown in a lab rather than having evolved naturally from a bat coronavirus — Beijing’s official and as-yet unsubstantiated explanation for the virus’ origin. The research adds further weight to the lab leak hypothesis, despite the best efforts of numerous high-profile scientists to stifle debate.

  The Telegraph newspaper in September last year reported that all but one of 27 scientists who cosigned a letter published by the medical journal The Lancet on March 7, 2020, had connections to the Wuhan institute. The letter “strongly condemned conspiracy theories” surrounding the origin of COVID-19 and rubbished the notion that the virus could have originated in a laboratory. The letter’s publication during the crucial early stages of the pandemic shut down scientific debate over the origins of the virus.

  An e-mail exchange released under UK freedom of information laws shows that the letter was coordinated by British zoologist Peter Daszak after he was asked by “our collaborators” in China for a “show of support.” Daszak is president of US-based EcoHealth Alliance, which has funded research at the Wuhan laboratory.

  In earlier e-mail correspondence between the director of UK-based Wellcome Trust, Jeremy Farrar, and US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, the two said that it was likely the virus had leaked from a laboratory.

  However, Farrar wrote: “Further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.”

  In language that could have come straight from the mouths of CCP propagandists, then-director of the US National Institutes of Health Francis Collins cautioned that further debate could damage “international harmony.”

  A large number of leading scientists have shown spectacular naivety toward China, and some have acted in a downright mendacious manner to protect their own skins, as well as their pet projects.

  China would scupper any international investigation, so instead, other nations, including Taiwan, must get their houses in order and stop any further funding of dodgy Chinese science.
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