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Was Novel Coronavirus lab-made or lab-released - Theories flourish
Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment
- Wuhan virus lab: A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report in May 2021 said that some researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China fell ill with symptoms "consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness" in the fall of 2019. Then came a major statement on the origins of the coronavirus by infectious diseases guru Dr Anthony Fauci, in contrast to his earlier stand (that the virus was natural). All this has turned the spotlight once more on China and its possible culpability in letting loose a pandemic on the world.
- The suspicion: The Wall Street Journal reported that the three Chinese researchers sought hospital care a month before China disclosed the first Covid-19 cases in December 2019, although it cited caveats from unnamed US sources that the matter required "further investigation and additional corroboration." The claim was largely trashed by the US scientific establishment. Later, a joint study into the origins of Covid-19 by WHO and China published at the end of March 2021 said it was "extremely unlikely" that SARS-CoV-2 virus had escaped from a lab.
- Dr Fauci's volte face: Scientists are now starting to push back against the WHO and China conclusion that ruled out a lab leak, given Beijing's resistance to releasing lab records and allowing independent investigations. Dr Fauci has gone back from his original dismissal of the lab-leak theory in recent days, and is now saying that he is "not convinced" that Covid-19 developed naturally!
- President Biden: The Biden administration has taken the cue and said there are "serious questions" about the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, including its origins, and disclosed that the US government is working with WHO and other member states to support an expert-driven evaluation of the pandemic's origins "that is free from interference or politicization." The politicisation though is inevitable given the polarisation in the US between globalists and nativists imbued with a deep suspicion of Beijing. Trashed by the US scientific establishment, several prominent Trump supporters are striking back, questioning American collaboration with China.
- Allegations by American right-wing: Many Republican lawmakers wrote to Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institute of Health (NIH), requesting details about US funding so-called "gain of function research" in which viruses are manipulated in a lab to become more transmissible and harmful -- amid angry denunciation from the right wing of the so-called demigods of science. One accused Dr Fauci, who some on the right say is the "father of the virus," of playing word games in his rejection that US funded the Wuhan lab's gain of function research, alleging money from NIH was routed indirectly to WIV through another US organisation whose lead scientist played a prominent role in discrediting the lab leak theory. Calls are growing to follow the money trail.
- China remains recalcitrant: China has continued denying any responsibility for the pandemic, accusing the US of continuing to hype up the lab leak theory and distracting attention from tracing the virus origin. China suggested the virus did not originate in Wuhan and might have even entered China from another country via imported frozen food shipments or wildlife trading, without offering any credible evidence for the claim.
- Knowledge centre:
- Dr Anthony Fauci - Dr. Fauci is an American physician-scientist and immunologist. He served the American public health sector in various capacities for more than 50 years, and has acted as an advisor to every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan. Dr. Fauci made important scientific observations that contributed to the understanding of the regulation of the human immune response and is recognized for delineating the mechanisms whereby immunosuppressive agents adapt to that response. He developed therapies for formerly fatal diseases such as polyarteritis nodosa, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, and lymphomatoid granulomatosis. He contributed to the understanding of how HIV destroys the body's natural defense system, progressing to AIDS. In 2003, the Institute for Scientific Information stated that from 1983 to 2002, "Fauci was the 13th most-cited scientist among the 2.5 to 3.0 million authors in all disciplines throughout the world who published articles in scientific journals."
- Wuhan Institute of Virology - The WIV was founded in 1956 as the Wuhan Microbiology Laboratory. It is a research institute on virology, run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It reports to the State Council of the China. It is located in Wuhan, Hubei. Mainland China's first biosafety level 4 (BSL–4) laboratory was commissioned here. The institute has links with the Galveston National Laboratory in the United States, and was an active research center for the study of coronaviruses. In December 2019, cases of pneumonia due to an unknown coronavirus were reported to health authorities in Wuhan. The institute checked its coronavirus collection and found the new virus had 96% genetic similarity to RaTG13, a virus its researchers had discovered in horseshoe bats in southwest China. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the laboratory has been the focus of various conspiracy theories.
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