Distinguishing between Trump and Biden In an article published in March 2020, CNN posted an image of former President Trump crossing out the word “Corona” and changing it to “Chinese” before the word virus in a note at a meeting with the task force against COVID-19. The American newspaper at the time asserted that this was an attempt by the President and some in the administration to distract the public from his failure to control the spread of the COVID-19 disease in the US. At the same time, many other American newspapers quoted a series of statements from the White House public health advisers asserting that it is inappropriate and inaccurate to associate SARS-CoV-2 with the name Wuhan virus. “Ethnicity is not the cause of the virus that causes COVID-19” , Forbes quoted Alex Azar – US Secretary of Health and Human Services at that time said. A photo shows the word “Corona” removed and replaced with “China” in Trump’s COVID-19 announcement. Sheet Vox Trump’s association with COVID-19 by geographical location is dangerous because it arouses xenophobia. CBS News stressed that the US leader’s statements related to the “Chinese virus” only fueled a wave of discrimination against Asian Americans. According to statistics from the database website Factbase, Trump used the phrase “Chinese virus” more than 20 times between March 16 and March 30. Before a series of criticisms from the media and public opinion, he did not mention this phrase but never “reduced” when he asserted that there was evidence that nCoV escaped from the Wuhan laboratory many months later. Unlike his predecessor, not long after taking office, President Biden signed an executive order banning COVID-19 contacts by geographical location. A few weeks ago, the hypothesis that COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan laboratory became hot again when the Wall Street Journal It was reported that 3 researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized for treatment in early November 2019. The American newspaper confirmed that these people had “symptoms similar to COVID-19 disease”. A few days after the information Wall Street Journal Posted, President Biden directed the US intelligence community to intensify efforts to investigate the origin of COVID-19 and report to him within 90 days. This move of the American leader was welcomed by the US media. A series of American newspapers began to seriously analyze the possibility of the virus escaping the laboratory, citing experts who emphasized the need for a scientific investigation into this matter. CBS News Quoting former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, it was a mistake to prematurely dismiss the theory that COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan. While New York Times said many scientists welcomed President Biden’s call for a more extensive investigation of the Wuhan lab. Many other newspapers are racing to publish information about the report of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, USA on the origin of COVID-19 which emphasizes the hypothesis that the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from a laboratory. China’s experiment in Wuhan is correct and needs further investigation. The same problem, but at two times, the way the American media reported under two presidents seemed different. Although compared to 1 year ago, the hypothesis that COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan laboratory is only one more episode like Wall Street Journa l posted. Intelligence agencies around the world, including in the US, have yet to make any official conclusions about the origin of nCoV. Trump supporters criticize American media. Many opinions say that anti-Trump sentiment makes many newspapers lose their objective view when they only focus on going against what the US leader claims. The US has never given up investigating the origin of COVID-19 Even under Trump or Biden, the US has never given up on the investigation into the origin of COVID-19. Washington criticized China for denying international investigators access to the Wuhan lab and for failing to explain some of the inconsistencies in the hypothesis that the virus jumped from animals to humans. The Wuhan Institute of Virology became the focus of the investigation into the origin of COVID-19. (Image: Shutterstock) According to the sheet DW of Germany, the United States is taking every opportunity to remind the world that China is responsible for the entire current world mayhem. Whether it’s Trump or Biden, they want the American people to believe that the disease that has claimed more than 600,000 American lives originated in China and they have done everything to find the truth that Beijing hides. Blaming China also alleviated people’s dissatisfaction with the government’s shortcomings in putting in place anti-epidemic measures. It is undeniable that China has fought COVID-19 well and soon brought the epidemic under control. Beijing is also busy promoting its success story and drowning out international criticism for its “leaving” nCoV to the world. But China’s lack of transparency has also fueled speculation that Beijing is hiding something. This provides fertile ground for conspiracy theories. “Unfortunately, we are experiencing a situation in which the question of the origin of COVID-19 and different strategies in fighting the pandemic becomes the subject of a propaganda war between the US government and the US government. and China” , said German scientist Felix Wemheuer. Experts say that while trying to refer to China as an irresponsible country that spreads the disease but consistently denies it, the US has built itself as a leader in finding the truth, ready to stand up for justice. The US claims to blame China for COVID-19 are also against Beijing’s propaganda efforts that the virus did not originate in the country. After successfully controlling the epidemic, China began to shift public opinion from criticism aimed at the country to Beijing’s contributions in the pandemic. Beijing once hypothesized that the virus may not have originated in China after a study published in 2020 showed that antibodies against COVID-19 or a variant were detected in Italy in 2019. China also called called WHO to investigate the hypothesis that the virus leaked from laboratories around the world, referring to the possibility that the pathogen may have been brought by US military personnel to Wuhan, China in October 2019. If it is proven that COVID-19 came from a laboratory in Wuhan, the US will destroy the image that China has built and pressure Beijing to shoulder the burden of vaccination for the world. The US accusations against China may also give other countries a stronger voice in demanding an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 under the umbrella of US protection. In fact, British intelligence recently suddenly changed its opinion, from thinking that the virus theory leaked from the laboratory “unlikely” to saying this hypothesis is “absolutely possible”. For the US, an investigation into the origin of the epidemic could become a lever to increase pressure on China and be part of a competition for influence between China and the West. If it can obtain evidence of Beijing’s cover-up of the pandemic, Washington can use that as leverage in negotiations. Is the investigation being politicized? Under pressure from the US, China and WHO officials repeatedly called on Washington to stop politicizing and “poisoning” the investigation into the origin of COVID-19. Experts fear the US-China blame game for the origin of the epidemic threatens scientific investigations. (Photo: SCMP) “US efforts to politicize research on the origins of COVID-19 seriously undermine international cooperation and create difficulties and obstacles for efforts to combat the virus and save lives.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman stressed. According to the DW The fact that the US is using COVID-19 as a “scapegoat” as well as the way China is not really transparent about providing information at the beginning of the outbreak are turning science into a political victim of the pandemic. . The world’s two largest economies are stuck in a blame game, fueled by theories about the origins of COVID-19. Experts fear this could distort the investigation into the origin of the epidemic, which is expected to be based on science. “Analysts are under political pressure to stick to the theory that the virus leaked from the lab,” he said. analyst Jeffery Wright said. Dr Mike Ryan, head of WHO’s health emergencies programme, once affirmed that “science needs to be central and science will find the answer”. Unfortunately, the WHO’s statements seem to be losing some weight due to earlier accusations by the Trump administration that the WHO is a “puppet of China” and that the organization is China-centric. Doubts with the WHO also increased when the organization’s investigation into the origin of COVID-19 in March did not come to a clear conclusion. The investigative report mentions the theory that the virus leaked from the laboratory but claims this scenario is “extremely unlikely”.

On May 26, the Biden administration directed US intelligence officials to take a closer look origin of SARS-CoV-2 , including theories such as animal-to-human transmission and lab leaks. The SARS-CoV-2 virus has so far infected more than 172 million people globally and caused more than 3 million deaths. (Photo courtesy: AFP) To date, the most comprehensive look at the origins of Covid-19 is a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) published on March 30 by an international team of researchers who traveled to China to Investigate the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, weeks later, many countries around the world have expressed concern that investigators have not had access to adequate data, while scientists say the report clearly shows how the virus develope. “The quick and obvious answer is not possible, as it normally takes years to trace the source of the virus. But in this case, I think we have enough evidence to make some hypotheses about SARS-CoV-2,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Center for Global Health Science and Security at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Georgetown University Health, said. In the WHO report, the team found that it is possible that SARS-CoV-2 was transmitted from one animal to another before it was transmitted to humans. They also looked at evidence supporting the hypothesis that the virus was transmitted directly to humans from the original host animal, or that the virus spread through the frozen food supply chain. In addition, the research team said that the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan (China) is “very unlikely”. Below are the evidences for each of the four hypotheses about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 that the WHO report makes. 1. Direct animal-to-human transmission WHO assesses direct transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from animals to humans as a “probable” possibility. The SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in an animal, possibly a bat, and then spread to humans. The WHO report provides evidence that the majority of coronaviruses that infect humans come from animals, including the virus that caused the 2003 SARS outbreak. Bats are thought to be the most likely animal to cause it. epidemics of Covid-19 because they are hosts of a virus that is genetically related to SARS- CoV-2. The WHO report acknowledges the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 spread to humans from pangolins or ferrets. However, David Robertson, a virologist at the University of Glasgow, said that the WHO team of scientists had sampled many animals other than bats for study, and the analysis showed that bats are a natural reservoir for the virus. SARS-CoV-2. 2. Transmission from animals to humans through an intermediate host According to WHO, the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from animals to humans through an intermediate host is very high. In the event that SARS-CoV-2 was not transmitted directly from bats to humans, the scientists believe the most likely hypothesis is that the virus first spread through another animal species, such as a ferret or ferret. pangolin. Unlike bats, these animals are in constant contact with humans, especially if they are raised on farms or during the illegal wildlife trade. If SARS-CoV-2 was initially transmitted to another animal, that could also explain how the virus adapted to harm humans, although Robertson said the virus probably won’t change much. Genome analyzes show that SARS-CoV-2 is a virus specifically adapted to humans, which explains why it can be easily transmitted between pangolins, ferrets, cats and other species. other animals. The WHO report indicates that this is the route that previous corona viruses have taken to infect humans. For example, the SARS virus is believed to have passed from bats to civets before causing an epidemic in humans in 2002. Meanwhile, the virus that causes MERS has been found in camels throughout the Middle East. Daniel Lucey, an infectious diseases specialist at Georgetown University Medical Center, said that the similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and coronavirus families like SARS and MERS are a compelling argument that the strain type This virus can be transmitted in the same way. However, if this hypothesis is correct, it remains unclear what the intermediate host for the transmission of the virus from animals to humans is. The WHO team analyzed samples from thousands of domestic animals across China, all of which tested negative for SARS-CoV-2. Mr. Lucey said that the WHO team did not adequately examine mink raised in China, one of the suspected intermediate hosts. 3. Transmission through frozen food WHO assesses the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 transmission through frozen food is probable. Another theory is that the virus can be transmitted to humans through the cold supply chain, the supply chain that distributes frozen food. In this case, the virus may have originated outside of China but spread into the country through the surface of the food packaging or in the food itself. This hypothesis gained interest in the summer of 2020 after several outbreaks in China. Since then, there has been some evidence that pathogens can survive longer at cold temperatures. However, while cold supply chains may play a role in new outbreaks, scientists say there is little reason to think that is the source of the pandemic. There is no direct evidence that SARS-CoV-2 causes food-borne outbreaks, while Rasmussen noted that SARS-CoV-2 is rarely spread through surfaces. . “It is not an impossibility. This possibility cannot be ruled out. But I think the current evidence is not enough to show that,” Ms. Rasmussen said. 4. Leaks from the lab According to WHO, the possibility of the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaking from the laboratory is extremely unlikely. The most controversial theory about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is that the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, where scientists studied coronaviruses in bats. WHO scientists point out that there is little evidence that the virus leaked from the laboratory. An employee works at the laboratory of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (China). Photo: AFP There are 2 possibilities of the SARS-CoV-2 lab leak hypothesis, that is, a researcher was accidentally infected in the laboratory or the researchers intentionally invented a corona virus strain to create SARS. -CoV-2. However, the researchers completely rejected the second possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was created by genetic evidence that the virus arose spontaneously. WHO focuses on the possibility that the virus accidentally escaped from a laboratory where wildlife samples are being studied. Although there have been laboratory leaks in the past, the WHO report indicates that these are very rare. According to the WHO report, there is no record of any laboratory in Wuhan working on a virus closely related to SARS-CoV-2 before the first cases of Covid-19 were diagnosed. diagnosed in December 2019, nor have any laboratory staff reported symptoms of Covid-19. An article by the Wall Street Journal on May 23 stated that three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill in November 2019 and were hospitalized with “symptoms consistent with both Covid-19. -19 and seasonal flu. However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on May 25 denied this information. When the WHO report was released in April, Mr. Lucey believed the hypothesis was plausible, although less likely than animal-to-human transmission due to the lack of evidence. Lucey pointed out that there was no forensic investigation of the Wuhan labs. “There really isn’t any way to prove or disprove the lab leak theory based on what is presented in this report,” Ms. Rasmussen said, noting that, to address the issue, A forensic examination of the laboratory is required to find the origin of SARS-COV-2. According to expert Robertson, supporters of the virus lab leak hypothesis argue that SARS-CoV-2 has spread too quickly and effectively in humans to become a virus of natural origin. But if SARS-CoV-2 is a “smart” virus, according to genomic studies, Robertson said, it is not surprising that it infects humans so quickly and so strongly.

Professor Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, said the scientists signed a letter published in the journal Science to call for the attention of the scientific community. “What we’re saying is that the available evidence doesn’t rule out a laboratory origin of COVID-19, nor does it rule out a natural origin. And there’s really no solid evidence either. It’s just that. There’s quite a bit of evidence lacking right now, and we’re calling for it to be addressed because it’s such an important question,” said Prof. Meanwhile, the Business Standard on May 29 said that since last year, Professor Angus Dalgleish (British) and Norwegian scientist Birger Sorensen have come to a conclusion about the possibility that “the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated from To confirm their position, the two scientists published a 22-page paper in the journal Biophysical Discovery, explaining that, in the course of their research Researching the vaccine, they discovered “special traces” that the virus was not of natural origin.The clue was a row of four amino acids, which generate a positive charge and bind to negative human cells. . “The law of nature is that you can’t have four positive amino acids in a row. The only way to have this is to make it yourself,” commented Professor Angus Dalgleish. The article by these two scientists also affirms: “We now have no doubt that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was purposefully manipulated, forcing us to reconsider the We think there are retro-engineered viruses. They changed the virus, then tried to figure it out in sequence years ago. We’ve seen leaks. We know it’s happening in the lab, and we know it’s happening. We also know from the reports we’ve found that the coronavirus is studied in Biosafety Level 2 or 3 laboratories.” Both scientists are respected experts: Prof Angus Dalgleish is a professor of oncology in London known for his groundbreaking work on HIV vaccines while Birger Sorensen is a virologist and president of Immunor Pharmaceuticals, which is developing a COVID-19 vaccine called Biovacc-19. On May 26, US President Joe Biden ordered the country’s intelligence community to unravel the conspiracy theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory and must provide an answer within 90 days. Doubts Apparently, the hypothesis that the SARS-CoV-2 virus could be the result of a scientific experiment has heated up the debate among scientists about the operation of the safest biological laboratories in the world today. . The Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is suspected of leaking the virus, is a virology research institute managed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Located in Jiangxia District, Wuhan, Hubei, Wuhan Institute of Virology has China’s first biosafety level 4 (BSL – 4) laboratory and has close relations with the National Laboratory. Galveston in the US, the Center International de Recherche en Infectiologie in France, and the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. Gregory Koblentz, director of Biodefense Graduate, revealed that BSL-4 is built to work safely and securely against the most dangerous bacteria and viruses that can cause serious illnesses for which there is no treatment or vaccine. : “There’s an HVAC filtration system, so viruses can’t escape through the exhaust. Any wastewater that leaves the facility is treated with chemicals or high temperatures to ensure that nothing remains alive. The researchers themselves are highly trained and wear protective clothing.” Statistics show that there are 59 BSL-4s around the world but there are no binding international standards for safe, confidential and responsible work with pathogens. The report, Mapping Maximum Biological Containment Labs Globally, shows that accidents can happen, sometimes in top-tier facilities, and more often in lower-level labs. For example, the human H1N1 virus – the same flu that caused the 1918 pandemic, was leaked in 1977 in the Soviet Union (former) and China. In 2001, a mentally disturbed employee at a US laboratory sent anthrax spores across the country, killing five people. Two Chinese researchers exposed to SARS in 2004 spread the disease to others, resulting in one death. In 2014, a handful of vials of smallpox were discovered during an office move by the US Food and Drug Administration. Lynn Klotz, a senior scientist at the Centers for Non-Proliferation and Control, has been sounding the alarm for years about the public safety threats posed by such facilities. “Human error accounts for more than 70% of errors in laboratories, adding that US researchers must rely on data from freedom of information requests to learn about incidents.” hey,” Lynn Klotz said. These incidents do not mean that COVID-19 has leaked from a laboratory and the fact that there is no scientific evidence to support the scenario yet, said molecular biologist Richard Ebright of Rutgers University. laboratory accident for this pandemic.

The lack of information raises more questions. Recently, 24 scientists sent a letter to the World Health Organization (WHO) asking for an independent and rigorous investigation because they thought that the international investigation to China in early February was not deep enough. US President Joe Biden on May 26 also ordered intelligence forces to “double efforts” to investigate the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, including the possibility of a leak “from a laboratory accident”. While the theory that the corona virus leaked from the laboratory was “resurrected”, two competing groups of experts in the study of bat diseases in Wuhan became the target of criticism. The reason is that they are willing to ignore safety measures during research. Many new diseases in the past originated in bats. Photo: SCMP. “Batwoman” and Wuhan Institute of Virology Nicknamed “bat woman”, Dr. Shi Zhengli is a famous Chinese corona virus researcher. She has identified many strains of the virus similar to SARS (severe acute respiratory distress syndrome) over the years and forewarned of new pandemic risks. Thach’s laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) also discovered and studied viruses that are closely related to corona virus. However, the scientists point out that the two viruses are still decades apart in natural evolution. According to the report of the WHO expert team, Ms. Thach said that all field activities were carried out with full protective clothing, including N95 masks, overalls, visors, and gloves. However, in a speech in June 2018, Ms. Thach said that is not the case. “Most of the time, we’ll wear simpler protective gear, and that’s fine,” Thach said in her speech. That’s because most diseases in bats can’t be directly transmitted to humans, but can only be through intermediate animals, Ms. Thach explained. To illustrate, Ms. Thach showed the audience during the presentation a photo of her team casting nets to catch bats in the cave and sorting the samples. Some people on the team only wore medical masks and thin rubber gloves, while others used their bare hands and did not wear masks. “When are we going to strengthen the protective gear? For example, when there are too many bats in the cave or when there is a lot of dust when entering the cave,” Thach said. When the pandemic hit, Ms. Thach became quiet and appeared only occasionally. On February 2, 2020, she posted to friends on the social network WeChat and “swore on her life” that her lab was not related to the pandemic. Three months later, Ms. Thach continued to post denying rumors that she had brought intelligence files to the West, according to Global Times . Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Photo: AFP. When suspicions fell on the WIV, Ms. Thach sent a statement to the scientific journal Science in July. She said the corona virus could not have come from the WIV because her team did not encounter this strain during research. In addition, every employee here has tested negative for corona virus antibodies. According to Ms. Thach, before the pandemic, her team “never exposed or studied this virus, and did not know of its existence”. But she also admitted that her lab has not yet sequenced the genes of every sample due to financial and human constraints. She declined to say how many samples remain unsequenced. In January, Thach’s laboratory was questioned even more after the US State Department announced that there were “reasons to believe” that some WIV researchers showed symptoms similar to Covid-19 in the fall of 2019. May, Wall Street Journal also cited intelligence reports that three WIV researchers had been so sick that they needed to be examined. Vien Chi Minh, WIV’s laboratory director, called this a “blatant lie” in response to state media. Bat explorer and Wuhan CDC CDC During this time, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lab was less visible than the WIV. The WHO expert team’s report on the trip to the Wuhan CDC did not include notes on research safety measures. According to the report, the laboratory moved on December 2, 2019 to a location near the Huanan market – the market that was linked to the first cases of corona virus infection. “Such activity can disrupt the operation of any laboratory,” the WHO expert team said. However, the Wuhan CDC laboratory did not record any interruptions, according to the WHO expert. The Wuhan CDC is the place to monitor China’s initial response to the pandemic. At the Wuhan CDC, there is also a person who regularly works with bats – Dien Tuan Hoa. According to the Washington Post , in terms of position, Dien Tuan Hoa is a deputy technician in the pest control department of the Wuhan CDC. But Mr. Dien is known for being an aggressive adventurer when it comes to working with bats and insects. “He often goes to places that other people cannot find to get the necessary specimens,” a colleague said of Mr. Dien on a local TV station in January 2020. “He can confidently say that he can catch what others can’t.” Tian Junhua on a field trip to collect insects in Hubei province. Photo: China Daily. Using nets and traps, Mr. Dien’s team caught 155 bats in his home province of Hubei, and hundreds of bats in other areas for research in 2013. Mr. Dien was also a member of the team. discovered 1,445 new vertebrate RNA virus species. This result was published in a famous scientific journal Nature in 2016. Once, Wuhan CDC held an internal meeting with the theme “Learning from the achievements of Dien Tuan Hoa”. “No one can remember how many mountains he climbed, how many rivers he waded, how many bat caves he explored, how many stables he crawled, and how many landfills he had to search,” the CDC wrote of the event. However, Mr. Dien also admitted that sometimes he did not comply with research safety rules. In 2017, Mr. Dien told the state newspaper Wuhan Evening News that he once forgot his personal protective equipment, so he had to be isolated at home for 2 weeks after being shot in the body by bat urine. On several other occasions, he got bat blood on his skin while trying to control the animal with forceps, Mr. Dien said. On February 3, 2020, Mr. Dien’s team continued to appear in the journal Nature with early-stage clinical descriptions of a corona virus patient in Wuhan. The team’s research indicates that bats can be a host for pathogens. But when Covid-19 spread, Mr. Dien became quiet. March 2020, the state newspaper Health Times An anonymous source said Mr. Dien was not infected with corona virus. According to the article, Mr. Dien was in a bad mood because of rumors about whether he was patient zero. According to a report at the end of March by the WHO expert team, the Wuhan CDC denied storing or experimenting with bat viruses before the pandemic took place. However, in a video, Mr. Dien said he had been to dozens of bat caves and studied 300 types of virus vectors. Also from March, Mr. Dien no longer spoke in public. This highlights the challenge of an independent investigation into the origins of Covid-19: Many of the people who might have had key information in Wuhan are now silent. Mr. Dien continued to research during this time. In August 2020, Mr. Dien was a co-author on a study on ticks. Another of his November 2020 studies focused on antibiotic resistance genes in fish. Mr. Dien no longer speaks or publishes research on bats.

One theory is that the virus came from a bat-like animal. The virus then passes to another animal that has close contact with humans and infects them. The second theory suspects that the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from a chemical laboratory in Wuhan, China – where the first patient with Covid-19 was recorded. This hypothesis has been rejected many times, even by the WHO team of experts who came to Wuhan to investigate and rejected this hypothesis. However, in recent weeks, this question has been dug up again. Both of these hypotheses still have no reasonable answer, creating a controversy among scientists. The focus of public opinion The Wuhan Institute of Virology specializes in the study of pathogens in nature that are capable of infecting humans – causing novel diseases and high mortality. The Institute has collected many samples from wild animals for experiments to assess the vulnerability of humans to a variety of animal viruses. The institute has carried out numerous studies on bat viruses since the 2002 SARS outbreak, which claimed the lives of 774 people worldwide. Years after a strenuous search, scientists discovered a virus similar to the one that causes SARS exists in a bat cave in southwestern China. To reduce the risk of pathogens accidentally escaping, the facility had to enforce a series of stringent procedures, such as protective clothing or air filtration systems. However, even the most stringent measures cannot eliminate the risk of the virus leaking into the environment. Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Photo: South China Morning Post. For some scientists, the spread of pathogens by a careless laboratory worker is a plausible theory that explains how the pandemic began. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is located right near the Huanan seafood market – the outbreak is considered the most likely to transmit the virus from animals to humans. The location between the two immediately raised suspicions. Many people are even more suspicious in the context that the animal that carries the disease has not been identified and the Chinese government repeatedly refuses to allow the investigation of the scenario that Covid-19 is a leaked product from a laboratory. The scientists developed the hypothesis based on concerns about the risks associated with laboratory research, clues in the virus genome, and information from the institute’s studies. The Wuhan Institute of Virology insists that its laboratory does not have a virus closely related to SARS-CoV-2 – the origin of the Covid-19 outbreak. This hypothesis was repeatedly rejected, and was forgotten for some time. Until May 23, Wall Street Journal Citing a confidential US report, it was revealed that in November 2019, before China reported its first Covid-19 cases, some researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized. . Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian stated on May 24 that the article was “completely untrue”. The ability to transmit viruses from animals to humans A larger number of scientists believe that the virus that causes Covid-19 is of natural origin because there is no scientific evidence to support the scenario of a leak from a laboratory. Kristian G Andersen, a scientist at Scripps Research, who has done extensive research on coronaviruses, Ebola and other pathogens transmitted from animals to humans, says similar natural gene sequences are present in viruses as well. corona. Many new diseases in the past originated in bats. Photo: SCMP. In addition, from a historical perspective, a number of new diseases that have emerged in the past century have been traced back to human interactions with wild and domestic animals, including SARS (bats), MERS-CoV. (camels), Ebola (bats or primates) and Nipah viruses (bats). However, under any scenario, there is not enough evidence to prove that the other scenario cannot happen. 24 scientists recently sent a letter to the World Health Organization (WHO) demanding a rigorous, independent investigation, arguing that an international investigation into China in early February was insufficient. deep. US President Joe Biden on May 26 also ordered intelligence forces to “double efforts” to investigate the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic and report the results of the investigation within 90 days.

Man-made virus? Oncologist at St George’s Hospital in London, Professor Angus Dalgleish, and Norwegian virologist and president of Immunor Pharmaceuticals Birger Sørensen, revealed they had found evidence. originally about this last year, but was ignored by academia. Accordingly, during their research, the two experts concluded that “the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is the result of the development process in the natural environment is very low”. Both said this virus could be genetically modified at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (China) and a part of scientists tried to hide information about the origin of this virus. According to the two experts, they have found “special traces” that show that the virus is not of natural origin. This clue is a row of four amino acids, which generate a positive charge and bind to negative human cells. “According to the laws of nature, you cannot have four positive amino acids in a row. The only way to have this is to create it yourself,” Dalgleish said. He added that he and Sørensen had found evidence of human impact on the formation of the virus and made it look like a mutation in nature. Two British and Norwegian experts said the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the COVID-19 pandemic, was created in a laboratory. Photo: THE NATION In addition, the two scientists also looked at studies on China, some in collaboration with US universities, to find out how tools for creating viruses were developed. Sputnik news. They conclude that most of the studies above use a “functional development” research approach, which involves manipulating natural viruses in the laboratory to make them more infectious, allowing scientists to study their potential effects on humans. “We believe the virus was designed and created in a functional development approach. They changed the virus, then tried to find its mutated form years ago,” Dalgleish said. “A natural viral pandemic would mutate gradually and become more infectious, but less pathogenic. Many people predicted the COVID-19 pandemic would be like this, but that doesn’t seem to happen,” – the two scientists said. Two experts: Discovery during vaccine research According to the two experts, “it seems that the documents about SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan are confidential and related information has been destroyed”, so both “face huge gaps”. in the data will probably never be filled”. Mr Dalgleish and Mr Sørensen first raised their concerns last summer, after discovering suspicious features of the deadly virus while working on a vaccine against COVID-19. Security guards stand outside the Institute of Virology in Wuhan City, China. Photo: REUTERS The information about the research paper of the two scientists comes in the context of the US repeatedly calling for another investigation into the origin of the pandemic before China has always denied the possibility that the virus leaked from another in their laboratories, according to the South China Morning Post . On May 25, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee announced that they were conducting their own investigation into the origin of the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as how the US government responded to the crisis. this panic. US officials are concerned that “the lack of cooperation and transparency in the information provided by the Chinese government will continue to adversely affect any efforts to determine the source of the virus that causes the COVID-19 pandemic. “. A day earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian once again rejected the idea that the virus causing the COVID-19 epidemic originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, asserting that “there is no which leak” occurred. “The World Health Organization (WHO) team of experts went to investigate all the places they wanted to go, interviewed anyone they asked, and were satisfied with the results,” Zhao said.

Wuhan Institute of Virology, China. Photo: AFP 59 leading biological laboratories in the world The Wuhan Institute of Virology is among the most secure, often referred to as biosafety level 4, or BSL4. Such laboratory facilities are built to operate safely and securely against some of the world’s deadliest viruses and bacteria, which can cause serious diseases for which there is no cure or vaccine. . “There are air-conditioning filtration systems that prevent viruses from escaping through exhaust gases and wastewater, which are treated with chemicals or high temperatures to make sure nothing remains. at,” Gregory Koblentz, director of the Biosafety Program at George Mason University, told AFP. In addition, the researchers themselves are professionally trained and wear protective gear when conducting experiments. There are about 59 such biological laboratories around the world, a report co-led by Mr. Koblentz published this week said. “There are no mandatory international standards for safety, security and accountability standards for diseases,” the report said. Accidents can happen at any time Accidents can sometimes happen in even the world’s top facilities and are even more likely to happen in thousands of lower-end labs. The H1N1 virus – the same type of virus that caused the 1918 pandemic was leaked in 1977 in the Soviet Union and China, and then spread around the world. In 2001, a mentally challenged employee at an American laboratory sent parcels of anthrax spores across the United States, killing five people. Two Chinese researchers were exposed to the SARS virus in 2004 and spread the disease to others, killing one person. Lynn Klotz, a senior scientist at the Centers for Arms Control and Disarmament, has raised the alarm about the threat to the public from such experimental facilities. “Human errors account for more than 70% of errors in laboratories,” the researcher said. Controversy entitled “Strengthening the research function” There are controversies within the US government, which also funds the Wuhan coronavirus research program, and some independent scientists over whether gains of function – GOF) should be conducted. GOF studies focus on tailoring pathogens to make them more infectious, more dangerous, or easier to escape from treatments and vaccines – all with the aim of learning how to cope with them more effectively. This field has been going on for a long time. The debate heated up when, in 2011, two research groups showed that they could make avian influenza viruses more infectious in animals. Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch told AFP he was concerned that “would create a strain of the virus that, if it infects laboratory workers, not only kills the person but causes a pandemic”. “This study was not requested and does not contribute to the development of drugs or vaccines,” said molecular biologist Richard Ebright of Rutgers University, one of the strongest opponents of the type of research. this said. In 2014, the US government announced it would stop funding such research, but the process was criticized for its lack of transparency and trust. Late last year, a non-profit organization received funding from the US for research “to predict the risk of virus escaping from the laboratory” from corona virus in bats to humans in Wuhan. This week, before a question from Congress, experts Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci of the US National Institutes of Health also denied conducting activities to strengthen research functions.

Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Photo: Daily Mail According to the Daily Mail (UK), this incredible mistake was revealed in a screenshot sent to a Chinese medical journal. The photo shows information about a 61-year-old woman, known as “patient Su”, who lives about a mile from one of Wuhan’s main virus research facilities. The woman was also near a train station along the high-speed rail line that played a key role in spreading the virus around the city of 11 million people. This latest finding was revealed through an interview by a medical journal with the scientist tasked with compiling China’s official data on cases. In an interview with Health Times, Yu Chuanhua, Professor of Biostatistics at Wuhan University, said there were 47,000 confirmed and suspected cases on the national database of COVID-19 by the end of the year. February 2020. Among these, there was a death of a patient at the end of September 2019. “There is data on a patient who became ill on September 29. The data shows that the patient has not been given a nucleic test and a clinical diagnosis. It is possible that this is a suspected case of COVID-19. The patient died. This data has not been confirmed,” added Mr. Yu. The data also shows that two other suspected COVID-19 cases were reported to doctors in Wuhan on November 14 and November 21, 2019, along with several other cases prior to December 8, the period. China informed the World Health Organization (WHO) of the first cases. Inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Hubei Province, China. Photo: AP The Health Times article includes screenshots of information of two suspected COVID-19 cases in November 2019 on the database of Professor Yu. Although the patient’s personal details have been obscured, some information can still be seen, including the hospital name and home address. Information shows that patient Su has been treated at Rongjun hospital in Wuhan. Both the home address and the hospital where this patient is being treated are in Hongshan District, Wuhan City, where many studies on SARS-CoV-2 virus related to bats have been conducted in laboratories. experience. The area where patient Su lives and is treated is more than 20 kilometers from the Huanan seafood market, which Beijing initially believed to be the source of the COVID-19 infection. The second patient discovered in November 2019 is a 62-year-old man named Wang, who is being treated at Hanyang Hospital. However, Professor Yu has requested that the information published in the newspaper be retracted, claiming that the dates were entered incorrectly and that all other suspected cases before December 8, 2019 need further verification. . Wuhan Institute of Virology, Hubei Province, China. Photo: EPA This detail was discovered by Gilles Demaneuf, a member of the Drastic digital operations team, who discovered many facts that are said to contradict the theory that COVID-19 is an infectious disease from animals. Chinese objects. “We were able to accurately determine the name, age, and address of the suspected COVID-19 case very early, almost a month before the first case was officially announced. This address is right next to metro line 2 and not far from the hospital that treated some of the other first cases,” Demaneuf said. The railway system, which carries 1 million people a day, is linked to a seafood market, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and an international airport, he said. Demaneuf argues that these new findings show that more clues can be accessed if there are continued and determined efforts to evaluate the hypothesis that the virus leaked from the laboratory. The Wall Street Journal last week also cited a US intelligence report that said three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized for medical care in November 2019, a few months before China announced it. announced the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in this country. However, China has denied the above information. Beijing insists the WHO-led investigation team concluded after a visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in February that the possibility of a virus leak from the laboratory was “extremely unlikely”.

Security guards stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology (China)Source: South China Morning Post Recently, Mr. Chris Said, a data scientist, a member of the House of Representatives of Malta, posted on Twitter a list of viruses that have accidentally escaped from laboratories so far. According to him, SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 29 countries around the world in 2003, had leaked from several Asian laboratories. The first time SARS-1 “escaped” was in August 2003 at the National University of Singapore. The second time happened in December 2003 in Taiwan (China). The results of the investigation showed that a SARS scientist in Taiwan handled the leaked biological waste without wearing gloves, masks or gowns. In April 2004, SARS-1 escaped from the National Institute of Virology of China. The H1N1 bird flu virus first appeared in the world in 1918, causing a global pandemic. In 1977, the virus “re-emerged” and many believe it was the result of a leak from a laboratory. That lab is said to be working on a way to produce a live attenuated vaccine in response to the threat of a global flu pandemic. Martin Furmanski, a researcher at the Scientific Working Group on Biological and Chemical Weapons (USA), wrote in a 2014 report that authorities do not want to disclose the laboratory origin of H1N1 because worried about affecting virus research cooperation between countries. “Virilologists and public health officials quickly realized that the most likely source (of H1N1) was a lab leak, but they agreed not to make this public,” Furmanski wrote. Foot-and-mouth disease emerged in the UK in 2007, about 4km from a biosafety level 4 laboratory in the Pirbright area. The results of the investigation showed that the construction vehicles were carrying sludge contaminated with the virus from a faulty sewage line in Pirbright, Italian newspaper The Print reported on May 31. Smallpox virus leaked from two prestigious smallpox laboratories in the UK. The first occurred in 1972 at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The second case was recorded in 1978 at the Birmingham Medical School. Continuing to investigate the origin of COVID-19 In recent days, world opinion has heated up again about the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the global pandemic COVID-19. On May 13, a group of 18 scientists published in the journal Science (Science) of the United States, calling for a more thorough investigation of the origin of SARS-CoV-2. They believe that the hypotheses about the accidental release of the virus from the laboratory and natural transmission are both possible in reality. Earlier, in March, a team of experts sent by the World Health Organization (WHO) to China concluded that the hypothesis of a laboratory leak was “extremely unlikely” in reality. However, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the team’s assessment of whether SARS-CoV-2 could emerge in the community after a laboratory incident was “not broad enough” and request further investigation. Even America’s top medical expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who once denied the lab leak theory, now says he doesn’t believe the virus evolved naturally. US President Joe Biden has ordered the US intelligence community to investigate the origins of COVID-19, after new surveillance results showed there was a possibility of a pandemic after SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the laboratory. experience in China, American newspaper The Wall Street Journal reported on May 27. The White House came under pressure to investigate on its own after China told the WHO that its part of the investigation had been completed, and efforts to trace the source of the virus should turn to other countries. President Biden wants the US intelligence community to produce a report on the origin of COVID-19 within 90 days. He said that US intelligence focuses on two scenarios, SARS-CoV-2 comes from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory incident. Earlier, a US intelligence report wrote that three researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became so sick in November 2019 that they had to be hospitalized. In December 2019, China reported its first cases of COVID-19. “This questions the credibility of the claim by veteran researcher Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology that there is no transmission of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses among staff and students. of the Wuhan Institute of Virology”, American newspaper USA Today May 24, citing documents from the US State Department. However, the intelligence report on 3 Chinese researchers seriously ill The Wall Street Journal The mention is not conclusive evidence that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the lab, and the intelligence community still doesn’t know for sure what illness they have, CNN reported.

Researchers wear protective gear at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Photo: Xinhua US President Joe Biden announced last week that the US intelligence community had questioned two possible origins of the COVID-19 pandemic: “Human contact with infected animals or a laboratory incident. “. He ordered a new investigation “to bring us closer to a final conclusion”. According to Bloomberg, no matter where the investigation leads, the history of laboratory safety shows that leakage of pathogens has happened, sometimes with deadly consequences. Smallpox virus leak By the late 1970s, smallpox had been eradicated from the wild, but research on the disease continues in several laboratories around the world, including one in Birmingham (UK). where a virulent strain of smallpox virus is handled. In the summer of 1978, a medical photographer working there named Janet Parker became ill. When pustules spread on her body, the local doctor diagnosed it as a severe case of smallpox. Victim Janet Parker in the smallpox virus leak from the laboratory. It was the third leak of the smallpox virus in that decade from a UK laboratory. The British government has drastically stopped the outbreak by urgently isolating hundreds of people and vaccinating many others. Thanks to those efforts, only one other person became infected, and that was Parker’s mother. However, the female photographer experienced a painful, lonely death in quarantine, and is believed to be the last known fatal victim of smallpox. But there are other victims of the incident. At that time the press mentioned the director of the laboratory in Birmingham, a smallpox virus expert named Henry Bedson. Although there was no evidence, the media still blamed him for the incident. Quarantined at home and in despair, Bedson slit his own throat and died shortly thereafter. The British government has organized a thorough investigation into the outbreak. An investigation found Mr Bedson may not have followed adequate safety procedures and speculated that Parker contracted smallpox from a virus that leaked into the gas pipeline. Technicians at a laboratory in Rockville, Maryland (USA), where smallpox vaccine is produced. A lawsuit later dismissed this explanation, and raised the disturbing possibility that Parker herself had entered one of the workspaces without proper protection. To this day, the debate over the Parker incident remains unresolved. Anthrax spores from the lab When laboratories let pathogens leak in a secret environment, it is much harder to confirm the source of the outbreak. A case in point is the anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk, a rather isolated city in the former Soviet Union. In 1979, rumors of anthrax killing dozens, even thousands, began to spread to the West. Later that year, Soviet newspapers confirmed some reports, noting that more than 100 people had contracted anthrax after eating contaminated meat, and over 60 had died. It was a tragedy, but perhaps unavoidable because anthrax is readily apparent in local animal populations. However, US intelligence officials are not convinced by that. Satellite images show disinfecting truck-like objects around the city, with a significant focus of activity on a mysterious military facility known as Complex 19. CIA analysts have reported hypothesized that the Soviet Union leaked a weaponized form of anthrax. The Soviets reacted indignantly to this allegation. In 1980, Russia’s official news agency Itar Tass published a rebuttal titled “A Seed of Deception,” accusing the US of making false statements to gain geopolitical advantage. Sverdlovsk was once one of the military secret cities of the Soviet era. Then, under the administration of President Ronald Reagan, the CIA sought to better handle what happened. They asked Matthew Meselson, a distinguished geneticist at Harvard who worked on the bioweapons ban program, to directly assess the evidence. Mr. Meselson was not convinced by the US intelligence findings. In the 1980s, he rejected another theory that the Soviet Union used some kind of fungal weapon in Laos – and he initially held the same view on the anthrax case, endorsing the main explanation. information from the Soviet Union, with one important caveat: Without a thorough investigation in Sverdlovsk, it would be impossible to know for certain what happened. Essentially, Mr. Meselson supported the explanation that the meat was tainted, judging it to be “completely reasonable and consistent” based on what was known about anthrax. He also arranged meetings with Soviet scientists to add credence to this interpretation, with slides of pathology samples taken from the victims. The US intelligence community, however, remains skeptical. And in this case, the intelligence agencies, not the scientists, turned out to be right. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Meselson and other researchers finally had access to pathological samples taken from the victims’ lungs, which showed they had died from inhaling anthrax spores. Subsequent revelations added to the picture of what happened. Turns out Complex 19 is a biological weapons facility. Here they produce anthrax spores. According to the Laboratory Director of Complex 19 at the time, a filter connected to the spore dryer was clogged. This still happens often. The military officer in charge left a message for his replacement on the next shift but did not enter the logbook as is customary. When it came to the next shift, the replacement team looked at the notebook, saw nothing, and restarted the purifier. A series of anthrax spores quickly spread throughout the vicinity. Mr. Meselson eventually pieced together all the data and published a paper in the journal Science, which combined wind data with interviews, pathological samples and other evidence to describe the outbreak. Coal killed more than 60 people. That was in 1994, 15 years after the incident. Mysterious flu virus leak In addition, there is another incident that took place in the Soviet Union that is still a mystery. In the same decade that witnessed the leaks of smallpox in Britain and anthrax in the Soviet Union, there was also an unusual strain of flu at the time, called H1N1. Laboratory virus leaks have had deadly consequences. Photo: Atlantis In 1977, an H1N1 outbreak broke out on the border between China and the Soviet Union. The epidemic eventually spread worldwide that year, causing an unusual proportion of young patients. The mortality rate from epidemics is relatively low compared to some strains of influenza. But that’s not the problem. The worrying aspect of the epidemic is that this particular strain of H1N1 has not been present since 1950, when it was superseded by other strains of influenza. The appearance of that kind of “back in time” was confusing. Some researchers speculate that the virus may have “escaped” from a laboratory in the Soviet Union or China, but both countries deny this theory. However, the matter remains a puzzle for virologists. Many theories have been born and come to explain the so-called “frozen evolution”, among which the most prominent is the hypothesis that the virus spread to humans from a laboratory, possibly testing a vaccine to neutralize the disease. swine flu. A scientist involved in the development of a vaccine. Photo: Reuters The exact origin of COVID-19 may not be known All of the above incidents occurred in the 1970s. Laboratory safety was expected to have improved since then, but that has not always been the case. After the SARS outbreak in 2003, laboratories around the world began studying the virus. Since that time, there have been no less than 6 laboratory leaks of SARS. The first occurred at the National University of Singapore, where a student contracted the virus from a sample of the virus. This was followed by an incident in Taiwan/China, where a researcher contracted the virus, possibly during the disinfection of waste products from the laboratory. After that, several leaks happened at the National Institute of Virology of China. In one incident, a researcher infected her mother with the virus, and she died of SARS. In all cases, human negligence, mainly exacerbated by inadequate safety protocols, was the cause of the pathogen leakage. History has supported the theories being put forward that the current COVID-19 pandemic may not have a natural origin, but we are not in a position to rush into judgment. When it comes to lab leaks, the investigation and review process often takes a long time, and sometimes the answers remain unsatisfactory and incomplete. In the case of the COVID pandemic, we must prepare for the possibility that the world may never know the exact origins of a pandemic that has claimed millions of lives.

Front of Wuhan Institute of Virology Photo: Reuters This information adds weight to calls for a more complete investigation into the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic virus escaped from this laboratory. The above content is mentioned in a report from the Donald Trump administration, which said that some researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a center dedicated to research on corona viruses and other pathogens, had fell ill in the fall of 2019 “with symptoms resembling COVID-19 and common seasonal flu.” U.S. officials and former officials with intelligence on researchers in Wuhan expressed differing views on the strength of the evidence outlined in the report. One said that information was provided by an international partner and could be important, but needed further investigation. Others claim that the information is very reliable. “The information that we have comes from a variety of sources and is of very good quality. It is very accurate. What the report doesn’t talk about is the exact reason why they got the disease,” the source told Journal City Wall . Many epidemiologists and virologists believe that November 2019 was the time when SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the COVID-19 pandemic, began to spread in Wuhan. Beijing says that the first confirmed case in the city fell ill on December 8. China has repeatedly denied that the virus escaped from laboratories. On May 23, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs cited a report published by an investigation team led by the World Health Organization (WHO) after a visit to the Wuhan Institute of Viruses (WIV), saying that the virus leaked from the laboratory. experience is extremely unlikely. “The US continues to hype the theory of lab leaks. Are they really interested in traceability or are they trying to distract? China’s Foreign Ministry said. However, WIV does not share with the WHO team raw data, diaries and lab records where a lot of coronaviruses from bats are studied, the animals that many scientists consider most likely to be the animals. origin of the virus. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the team had not yet fully tested the lab leak hypothesis, so further investigation was still needed. There is an opinion that the article of Journal City Wall appearing before the upcoming WHO meeting was to heat the matter up again. But the Biden administration declined to comment on the intelligence report, saying only that all credible theories about the origins of the pandemic should be investigated by WHO and international experts. Abnormal point Shi Zhengli, the leading expert on bat coronaviruses at the WIV, said that the virus did not come out of the place where she was working. She told the WHO investigation team that all staff here were negative for COVID-19 antibodies and there were no staff changes in the corona virus research team. In February, Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans, a member of the investigation team who traveled to Wuhan, told NBC News that some WIV staff members fell ill in the fall of 2019, but she attributed it to common seasonal illnesses. “It’s normal to get sick from time to time. Nothing outstanding. Maybe 1 or 2 people. It’s not a big deal,” Koopmans said. Beijing even suggested that the virus could have originated outside of China, including a laboratory at the Fort Detrick military facility in the US state of Maryland, and then called on WHO to investigate the first COVID-19 outbreaks. in other countries. But most scientists see no evidence to support the idea the virus originated in a US military lab, and the White House says there is no credible reason to investigate the facility. . It is normal for Chinese people to go to the hospital for medical examination and treatment when they are sick, because family doctor services are not yet common. COVID-19 and seasonal flu, although two different illnesses, share many of the same symptoms, such as fever, cough, and aches and pains. However, it is worth noting that members of the same corona virus research team were sick and had to be hospitalized with similar symptoms, before the disease was detected. David Asher, a former US official who led the State Department task force to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, told a Hudson Institute panel in March that he suspects suspected that the WIV researchers were sick at the same time from the common seasonal flu. “I highly doubt that three people with good protective clothing working in a third-degree lab caught the flu and were hospitalized with severe symptoms in the same week that had nothing to do with the coronavirus,” he said. Asher said, these three people could be the “first known COVID-19 outbreak”.

The study said the new virus is more distantly related to the previously found strains of the coronavirus that cause Covid-19. However, this new virus has a high degree of similarity in gene sequence with the virus that causes Covid-19. This is the first time that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has released detailed information about the virus it has collected several years ago. “These results suggest that the coronavirus we detected from bats may be just the tip of the iceberg,” the team wrote in the paper. Wuhan Institute of Virology, China. Photo: AFP. Many research results have never been published Through the paper, the institute also provides more insight into the viruses they host. The latest study examines eight viruses collected during a 2015 survey trip to a town in southwestern China’s Yunnan province. During this trip, researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology collected more than 1,000 specimens from bats living in and around the cave over a three-year period. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has studied the corona virus found in bats. Photo: South China Morning Post. This trip started after a few workers came to the cave and became ill. After testing, the doctors said they had an unprecedented virus, so they started looking for a virus from bats. The team also added that the group of workers at that time did not have Covid-19. Previously, in the journal Nature published in November 2020, Wuhan researchers said that during their exploration of the cave, they found 9 viruses that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome and Covid- 19. One of them is RaTG13 – published by researchers in February – still considered the closest “relative” to Sars-CoV-2, the cause of Covid-19. The remaining eight viruses were newly classified in the May 21 paper. The origin of Covid-19 is still unclear and controversial. Doubt In February, after a trip to China, international experts investigating the origin of Covid-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested that the virus probably came from a bat-like animal. . The virus then passes to another animal that has close contact with humans and infects them. Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Photo: SCMP. However, critics, including the head of WHO, say the investigation is not deep enough. May 23, Wall Street Journal Citing a confidential US report, it was revealed that in November 2019, before China reported its first Covid-19 cases, some researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized. . Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian stated on May 24 that the article was “completely untrue”. Article by Wall Street Journal was released ahead of the WHO meeting, which is expected to discuss in detail the next phase of the investigation into the origins of Covid-19. The amazing variety of corona virus virus Evolutionary biologist Edward Holmes at the University of Sydney said that the paper by researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology provides further evidence that the Wuhan laboratory does not have a virus closely related to Sars -CoV-2 – the origin of the Covid-19 outbreak. A database of hundreds of thousands of bats is needed to see a complete picture of the coronavirus. Photo: AP. “This paper shows us the incredible diversity of coronaviruses found in animals in the wild,” added Mr Holmes. He and another team of experiments also found four viruses in bats closely related to Sars-CoV-2 among more than 400 samples collected in Yunnan province. The area is considered by WHO to be an important place for further research into the origins of Covid-19, although it remains unclear whether research is ongoing. The May 21 article also highlights recent work that highlights the possibility that Covid-19 is related to another species, besides bats. A pangolin coronavirus has the ability to effectively bind to human cells, distinct from the bat viruses associated with Sars-CoV-2 that have been identified so far. However, according to Maciej Boni, an associate professor at the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University (USA), there are not enough viruses yet to see an overall picture. “We need to have databases of hundreds of thousands of viruses in bats. Until then, we won’t have many new discoveries about the origin of Sars-CoV-2,” he said. Satellite photos show that Covid-19 can spread in Wuhan from August 2019 According to a study from Harvard Medical School (USA), satellite photos of hospital parking lots in Wuhan show that the corona virus may have been spreading since August 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic first broke out in Wuhan city, Hubei province, China. Photo: Getty Images The United States and several countries are closer than ever to defeating COVID-19 thanks to progress in vaccination against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. But the world still does not know how this deadly virus appeared, and there is a growing opinion from the scientific community that it does not happen naturally. The US is stepping up calls for more research and warning about the risks of future pandemics. Washington is also more open to weighing the theory that a mistake or failure in a Chinese laboratory caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the Chinese Government completely rejected this hypothesis and said that the dossier to trace the origin of the COVID-19 epidemic was closed. What’s new? According to CNN, a recent US intelligence report found that several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and were hospitalized – a new detail on the severity of the symptoms. disease in these scientists. It is not clear whether the researchers at that time had COVID-19 but the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) vehemently rejected the report, considering it a lie to promote the hypothesis that the virus leaked from the laboratory. . Scientists who worked for the WIV previously said the institute had nothing to do with COVID-19 disease until December 30, 2021. On May 24, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also denied the information that three Wuhan researchers were hospitalized before the outbreak of COVID-19 and affirmed that this information was “completely untrue”. Spokesperson Zhao Lijian confirmed that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was not exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus before December 30, 2019, and its staff so far have not been infected. Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Photo: AFP Meanwhile, on May 25, speaking at the US Congress, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that the failure to fund previous research on Corona virus in bats in China. Quoc is a “negligence of duty”. According to Fauci, the US should have pursued to the place where the contact between animals and humans could lead to the spread of the virus between species. Dr. Fauci himself, the leading infectious disease expert in the US, said this week he did not believe the COVID-19 outbreak occurred spontaneously and prompted further investigation. A World Health Organization (WHO) adviser, Jamie Metzl, also said the leak hypothesis is possible, while scientists are “groping, creating and studying” the virus with the aim of vaccine development. “So I believe what could have happened was a leak, followed by a cover-up,” said Metzl, who served at the US State Department and the Atlantic Council during the US presidency. President Bill Clinton said. The conclusion is that further investigation is needed An in-depth study conducted by WHO in collaboration with the Government of China, published in March, explored the different possible origins of the COVID-19 epidemic and came to the conclusion that: although still It is not yet known how the disease originated, but it is likely that it spread to humans, either directly from bats, or more likely from an intermediate species that caught the virus from bats and then spread to humans. for human. Bats can be an intermediary that spreads the SARS-CoV-2 virus to humans. Photo: NPR The WHO report called the laboratory leak theory “extremely unlikely”, citing the fact that no laboratory staff in Wuhan were infected before December 2020 as an argument against this hypothesis. After the WHO report was published, its officials still called for an additional and public investigation from the Chinese side. Meanwhile, a newly released US intelligence report shows that laboratory workers of the Wuhan Institute of Virology have been sick since before December. According to WHO adviser Jamie Metzl, in the early stages of the outbreak of the disease. when China did not warn the world appropriately, Chinese officials blamed the transmission on an initial hotspot, a seafood market in Wuhan, which at this point was essentially Is not right. This expert said that there is a lot of evidence that the Chinese government initially tried to cover up the existence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. “Whatever the origin of the pandemic, the first month, when China was spending all its energy trying to cover things up rather than fixing the problem, allowed the fire in the furnace to cause a fire in the kitchen.” into a house fire and a worldwide fire,” said Metzl. The Wuhan Institute of Virology became the center of doubts about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Photo: Getty Images A group of well-known and experienced scientists also criticized the WHO report for not taking seriously the hypothesis that the virus leaked from the laboratory. According to them, this hypothesis was refuted within just a few pages of a hundred-page report published by WHO. The scientists wrote in the journal Science: “We must seriously consider the contagion hypotheses in the wild and in the laboratory until we have enough data.” Fear of a recurrence of a pandemic These “closed doors” have also helped conspiracy theories expand. Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton has promoted the idea that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was purposefully created as a biological weapon. But there’s no concrete evidence to back up that claim, and experts still say it’s unlikely. Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told CNN it’s unlikely the Wuhan lab manipulated the virus to make it more contagious. but “we have to find out” the truth. Dr. Offit said that the world needs to do something to prevent another pandemic. “What I know is that they [Trung Quốc] must allow this [điều tra mở về nguồn gốc dịch]“This is now the third pandemic to emerge in the past 20 years,” said Mr. Offit. First there was SARS 1, then there was MERS. I think we can assume we’re not done with this yet.”

Wuhan Institute of Virology – which is hypothesized to be the source of Covid-19 infection. (Source: Reuters) According to a report published on 30/3, a joint investigation by the World Health Organization (WHO) and China conducted on the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing acute respiratory infections (Covid- 19) concluded that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus had escaped a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. The origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is still questionable The report concludes that the virus is most likely transmitted to humans from an unknown animal, while contradicting the theory made by former US President Donald Trump that the Chinese lab may be the birthplace. virus. While China praised the report, 14 countries including Japan, the US, Australia, the UK, Canada and South Korea have expressed “common concern” about the study and claim that the investigation has was “delayed a long time and lacked access to complete data and originals”, and called for “a fast, efficient, transparent, science-based and independent process” to produce international assessments in case of future outbreaks. WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said: “All theories are still being discussed. Although the team has concluded that the laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, it requires requiring further investigation, it is likely that additional missions including many experts will have to be deployed. According to WHO Director-General, the inspection team should have access to full data including biological samples from at least September 2019. He asserted that this report is a very important beginning and not the end. “We have not found the origin of the virus yet, and must continue to follow the science without missing any details”, Mr. Tedros Ghebreyesus stressed. While the majority of the report focuses on molecular studies, viral evolution, and potentially host animals, the report on potential laboratory leaks does. Very sketchy presentation. Although the host origin of SARS-CoV-2 is widely recognized, some scientists still maintain the view that this virus may have been collected and stored in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, despite the fact that Chinese scientists have rejected this claim. Viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 were reported to have been found in bats and pangolins, but an intermediate host for transmission to humans has yet to be identified. This report is based on a study conducted by an international team of experts that mink and cats, which are known to be susceptible animals, may be one of the potential hosts. Need more information The Trump administration once hypothesized that the SARS-CoV-2 virus could have come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and claimed that some researchers there had already had Covid-19-like symptoms in the fall. year 2019. However, the team said they found no evidence to support this claim during a January-February 2021 field trip to Wuhan City to investigate the source of the virus. The Chinese authorities have stated that the SARS-CoV-2 virus could have been introduced into the country through imported frozen food. Such transmission is possible but cannot be verified as imported frozen products are not considered a potential path of infection during early spread, the team report said. viruses and there were no tests for them at the time. Matthew Kavanagh, a researcher at Georgetown University, said the report said more in-depth information about the origin of the virus, but more information is needed. “Obviously, the Chinese government does not provide all the necessary data, and until they do this, the conclusions will be very difficult,” said researcher Matthew Kavanagh. The reporting team included experts from many different countries and officials from WHO, World Veterinary Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The team, after being quarantined for two weeks in Wuhan in mid-January 2021, inspected the research institute and other places believed to be related to the virus such as seafood markets. They also had discussions with Chinese experts. Representatives of the WHO and China expert group at a joint press conference in Wuhan on February 9. (Source: Reuters) “Opposite” views Jesse Bloom, an expert on evolutionary biology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle (USA), said he does not believe that a lab leak is unlikely. The expert agrees that the virus naturally evolved to spread to humans, but he did not see any explanation in the report disproving the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus could catch. source from a laboratory. Meanwhile, Mr. Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO expert group, a British ecologist in infectious diseases, and the executive director of the Ecological Health Coalition – a disease prevention organization in New York. , has voiced opposition to the flow of comments criticizing the research results and the degree of cooperation of China. Mr. Peter Daszak said that the lab leak hypothesis “has political purposes from the very beginning”. Dr. Daszak added that the WHO team of experts was not prohibited from participating in interviews with scientists who were on the ground during the early stages of the pandemic. Mr. Daszak himself has also been accused of a conflict of interest due to collaborating research on the virus with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which he thinks an infectious disease ecologist should do. “We were in the right place because we knew there was a risk of disease outbreaks. We were working there with this exact team and it happened,” said Dr Daszak. A group of scientists not affiliated with WHO is calling for a new investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. They argue that such an investigation needs to consider the possibility of the virus spreading from a laboratory in Wuhan or infecting people inside it. (synthetic)