WHAT REMAINS UNANSWERED IS WHETHER A LEAK ALLOWED A GENETICALLY-MODIFIED VIRUS THEY WERE WORKING ON TO ESCAPE
market. Calvert and Arbuthnott identify a number of important facts that don’t neatly fit the Chinese narrative.
The WIV had been involved in the study of coronaviruses since 2004. The team set up in Wuhan in the wake of the 2002 SARs outbreak travelled far and wide to collect bat dung samples in old mines and isolated caves.
This team, working hundreds of miles from their Wuhan home, identified SARs antibodies in the bats: a vital break-through in determining where this disease originated.
While doing this work, in 2012 they were called in to investigate a disease outbreak in copper miners. Three people had died in the outbreak of this mysterious pneumonia-type illness with links to bats. Those who died were tasked with clearing piles of faeces from mine resident bats.
This incident was not reported - so the world was unaware - but research undertaken by the team at WIV was published, which linked this
illness as the closest-known relative of SARs-CoV-2.
Before the pandemic there were international concerns about the biosecurity at the WIV facility: concerns which focused on the ability of management to assure compliance in a hierarchical structure such as China.
This was, of course, not the only concern: the training of staff and the type of work the WIV was involved in were also concerns.
Gain of Function Experimentation (GOFEs) is controversial and Michael Osterholm gives a good overview of the concerns about these types of experiments in his pre-COVID-19 book, Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs.
GOFEs seek to alter the genes of viruses and other bugs to rapidly speed up natural mutations. It is controversial, since it has the potential to produce virulent and highly-infectious bugs that might - accidentally or deliberately - spill out into the wider population.
There is no direct evidence that the WIV was involved in GOFEs and certainly the World Health Organisation (WHO) tried to establish this in its recent report into the origins of COVID-19 (
https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus /origins-of-the-virus). The WHO team visited Wuhan in January 2021 and completed its report in March.
What is telling is its statement on the lack of transparency by Chinese authorities. The WHO team could not investigate many aspects of the work at the WIV and also found that the wet market, identified as the source of the virus, was not the only place where samples of the virus were found. Indeed, the first patient to die of the disease had no direct connection to the market.
China did not create Sars-CoV-2 and it may well be that it just appeared as viruses do. What remains unanswered is whether a leak at the WIV allowed a genetically-modified virus they were working on to escape into the wider population.
This still remains a distinct possibility and, while it is not said explicitly in the WHO report, the caveats on the lack of detail and the obstruction by Chinese authorities means that we may have to wait some time to get the true answer.
In the meantime, the keyboard warriors are free to spew out their juicy conspiracy theories that support the warped view of The Donald.
BEFORE THE PANDEMIC THERE WERE INTERNATIONAL CONCERNS ABOUT THE BIOSECURITY AT THE WIV FACILITY: CONCERNS WHICH FOCUSED ON THE ABILITY OF MANAGEMENT TO ASSURE COMPLIANCE
scottishpharmacist.com 27
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
