Researchers Report Wuhan Coronavirus Could Attack Immune System Like HIV by Targeting Protective Cells
The more Chinese officials try to hide the origins of the coronavirus, the more likely it is that they have something significant to hide.
There has been a troubling report published in The South China Morning Post with findings from researchers studying the Wuhan Coronavirus.
A team of researchers from Shanghai and New York claims that COVID-19 could kill the immune cells that regularly kill the viruses, similar to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). HIV infection leads to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
These findings coincide with frontline doctors’ observation that COVID-19 could attack the human immune system and cause damage similar to that found in HIV patients.
Lu Lu, from Fudan University in Shanghai, and Jang Shibo, from the New York Blood Centre, joined the living virus, which is officially known as Sars-CoV-2, to laboratory-grown T lymphocyte cell lines.
T lymphocytes, also known as T cells, play a central role in identifying and eliminating alien invaders in the body.
They do this by capturing a cell infected by a virus, boring a hole in its membrane and injecting toxic chemicals into the cell. These chemicals then kill both the virus and infected cell and tear them to pieces.
To the surprise of the scientists, the T cell became a prey to the coronavirus in their experiment. They found a unique structure in the virus’ spike protein that apparently triggered the fusion of a viral envelope and cell membrane when they came into contact.
The virus’s genes then entered the T cell and took it hostage, disabling its function of protecting humans.
Interestingly, the team also indicates that the researchers did the same experiment with a virus that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The SARS virus could not infect T cells. The findings will be published in the peer-reviewed journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology this week.
I recently became concerned that the blood cells, either white or red, might be a target organ for the Wuhan Coronavirus when I came across a publication from a team of Chinese researchers that included several from Wuhan. The topic was the relationship between the ABO Blood Groups and the susceptibility to the virus.
The results showed that blood group A was associated with a higher risk for acquiring COVID-19 compared with non-A blood groups, whereas blood group O was associated with a lower risk for the infection compared with non-O blood groups.
This is the first observation of an association between the ABO blood type and COVID-19. It should be emphasized, however, that this is an early study with limitations. It would be premature to use this study to guide clinical practice at this time, but it should encourage further investigation of the relationship between the ABO blood group and the COVID-19 susceptibility.
Of course, with the new Beijing-mandated review and required approval before Chinese researchers can publish the origins of the coronavirus, further information may have to wait until foreign research teams to investigate.
I have been following the science-based articles on the novel coronavirus closely. One trend I found is that anybody who postulates that the pathogen is from a lab is painted as a “conspiracy theorist.” However, based on the information data, this hypothesis is reasonable…and the British government is weighing the possibility seriously.
Ministers fear that the coronavirus pandemic might have been caused by a leak from a Chinese laboratory, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Senior Government sources say that while ‘the balance of scientific advice’ is still that the deadly virus was first transmitted to humans from a live animal market in Wuhan, a leak from a laboratory in the Chinese city is ‘no longer being discounted’.
One member of Cobra, the emergency committee led by Boris Johnson, said last night that while the latest intelligence did not dispute the virus was ‘zoonotic’ – originating in animals – it did not rule out that the virus first spread to humans after leaking from a Wuhan laboratory.
The member of Cobra, which receives detailed classified briefings from the security services, said: ‘There is a credible alternative view [to the zoonotic theory] based on the nature of the virus. Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted.’
Wuhan is home to the Institute of Virology, the most advanced laboratory of its type on the Chinese mainland.
The more Chinese government officials try to hide the origins of the coronavirus, the more likely it is that they have something significant to hide.
It will be only a matter of time before other scientists unlock the secrets of this pathogen, as it certainly will be the subject of a significant amount of new research.
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Comments
china and new york? there’s a real pair for accuracy in reporting!!
believe NOTHING that comes out of china. new york is a close 2nd.
Hear Hear.
It is like the testimony of two serial murderers who were caught on camera murdering all their victims.
Must hear this editorial about the COMMUNIST CHINESE Flu.
https://patcondell.libsyn.com/the-virus-that-shames-china
The Virus That Shames China
It is a bio-weapon.
The only question remaining is whether the release was accidental or intentional.
I think it was intentional.
They certainly have the motive and are an evil authoritarian immoral regime.
China also has excess population, especially vulnerable elderly, whom the government wouldn’t miss one bit.
Often what looks like malice can be ascribed to incompetence. And governments have plenty of that.
My theory is it was accidental. There was no need to inflict this much damage on themselves.
But I believe:
1) They are willing to release intentionally, and we should prepare for the likelihood that this will happen in the future.
2) Once released, they wanted to maximize the damage in the West
3) The FBI have caught Chinese nationals transporting biologic agents to the US before, and will do so again
4) After seeing the fallout, Chinese government will increase the priority of biologics as an attack vector on the West
America will of course largely ignore and fail to prepare for this thoroughly, despite the most expensive wake up calls in history.
Of course, it could have been on purpose. I believe the course of action required is the same, because next time it will be.
The only purpose served by making such insane claims is to discredit the possibility that a lab was involved in the outbreak, and thus to support the Chinese coverup. Therefore, holding you to your own invalid standards, I accuse you of being in China’s pay.
Actually Milhouse,
Truthfully I think this really was an attempt at a military weapon that accidentally got out.
This is the second time I have seen this discussed. I read a report in early February that said that this covid attacked cells like HIV and unlike any other version of covid.
Chinese researchers pointed out that the virus in part was related to the horseshoe bat. The closest living horseshoe bats are about 550 miles from Wuhan, that means the virus could not have originated in the Wuhan wet market. Horseshoe bats are, however, used in the Wuhan biological labs near the wet market.
The lab in wohan was working on covid viruses with this exact type of bat. And just today it was released that the lab in question was red flagged in 2018
https://www.foxnews.com/world/state-department-cables-coronavirus-origin-chinese-lab-bats
Just some thoughts and questions I would like answered….
The Corona virus traveled all over the world from Wuhan, but did not reach Beijing or Shanghai … can anyone explain that?
The Chinese stock market did not collapse, but the American and European markets did. And when those markets collapsed, the Chinese bought big.
How come Russia and North Korea are almost totally free of Covid-19? Because they are strong allies of China? The lowest reported cases of Covid-19 are from these 2 countries.
China will say that its initial drastic measures they took were very severe and that Wuhan was locked up to contain the spread to other areas. Or are they are using an antidote that was already available before they released it.
Why was Beijing not affected at all? On the other hand, South Korea / United Kingdom / Italy / Spain and Asia are seriously affected. And how is it that Wuhan is suddenly free from the deadly virus?
And another interesting fact … Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Wuhan at the peak of the outbreak … why did he put on a simple RM1 face mask to visit those affected areas? As president, shouldn’t you have been covered from head to toe in a hazardous materials suit? Perhaps because the antidote had already been injected, there was no need to worry?
1. Did they release a virus for which they already had an antidote.
2. Did they purposely spread the virus for financial gain.
3. Is there is a clear demonstration of efficiency … they built hospitals in a few days. They had to be prepared with the organized projects … with the ordering of the equipment, the hiring of labor, the water and sewer network, the prefabricated building materials and the storage in an impressive volume, it all happened very quickly.
4. Did they intentionally cause chaos in the world, beginning with Europe and the rest of the western worlds.
5. Did they purposely spread the virus in order to decimate the economies of dozens of countries.
6. Did they purposely spread the virus to stop production and manufacturing lines in factories and primary production in dozens of countries.
7. Did they purposely spread the virus causing the stock markets to crash and then they bought stocks, bonds and companies at bargain prices.
8. Did they quickly gain control of the epidemic in their country. Or was it released after they were ready, and it was never really out of control.
PS: Read the 1999 book by Chinese Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, “Unrestricted War: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America,” on Amazon. Everything is there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare
Just think about this …
There is no doubt in my mind that this is a form of biological warfare.
Troy W.
Intentional.
Ask yourself what would the Communist Chinese government have done differently if it were an accident or an intentional attack?
Absolutely nothing.
A being the most common blood type
Will be interesting to see the blood types of those who died
I thought it was O?
One thing I have always hated about blood tests. No matter how long or hard I study, I only can get a B+.
You’re looking at things all wrong. You can pull a three-day bender, take your test drunk, and still get a B+!
There was a sci fi story long ago of an agreed plan to reduce the earth’s population by releasing a disease that only attaced a specific blood group. This property of the disease was classified.
Long ago because the Soviets were still the nominal bad guys, with whom the agreement had been reached.
Seen on the Internet:
My friend used to run a global business and still has colleagues in Wuhan. That colleague said there were about 200,000 deaths in that province and laughed when told that we have been told that Wuhan deaths were about 3000.
How could it not have been from one of the labs in Wuhan? 1: The virus has been traced to the horseshoe bat; 2: The closest horseshoe bats are 900 km (about 550 miles) from Wuhan; 3: But the Wuhan virological labs use horseshoe bats as test animals; 4: And finally, bats are not sold in the Wuham wet markets. Whether the escape from the labs was intentional or not, the Chinese Communists have a lot to answer for. We as Americans, should refrain as much as practicable from purchasing Made in China products.
How do we know these things? They’re both possible, but just because someone on the internet said so doesn’t make them true. I’ve not seen any confirmation of these claims, so as far as I can tell it’s not safe to assume them to be true.
China released a video in 2019 highlighting the retrieval of bat viruses for study at the Wuhan facility, which had also received a $3.5 million grant from the US.
The wet market would be the sole source if not for a level 4 virology site in close proximity that specifically studied bat, especially the horseshoe. Two peer-reviewed Chinese papers, now scrubbed, reported the likelihood of lab involvement and no horseshoe bats sold at the market.
1. The video doesn’t show that there are no horseshoe bats in the area.
2. Both claims, that there are no such bats in the area and that they are not sold at the market, come from one web posting by who-knows-who. There’s nothing to verify them.
3. In any case there were also claims that the virus moved from bats to humans via pangolins. If that happened then the whole question of the bats’ habitat becomes moot.
Yous should look into a career as a spokesman for the Chinese Communist Party.
That would require a complete lack of critical abilities and a willingness to believe whatever I’m told. You sound perfect for the job.
It would get you out of Mommy’s basement. The Chinese also don’t have much regard for intellectual property. Meshes nicely with your ten of thousand fold use of a copyrighted character.
The source for my statements is in a posting by Jim Treacher on PJMedia. I have seen the same facts multiple times on the internet.
All citing the same one posting by some random people in China. There’s no way to know whether it’s correct.
I learned early on in reading up on the virus that there was an HIV component to the Corona virus – proving it was an engineered virus. There is also a link to a lab in Canada which was complicit.
Chinese students attend all western universities and then get jobs in critical positions due to their excellent academic records and send all their learning back to China.
There was supposedly a subcontinent Indian lab that came out with a report that the virus was really really really weird with features never ever seen before in natural viruses.
At the moment I’m less concerned with exactly how this virus originated within China than with how it can be eradicated. Based on my reading there’s considerable precedent for existing strains of Coronavirus becoming endemic by rapidly mutating, which would prevent our immune system from recognizing it in time to prevent a reoccurrence. There are reports out of Taiwan of “recovered” Covid-19 patients retesting positive. Herd immunity only protects people against the virus as it existed at the time of the infection. If it mutates rapidly and our immune systems don’t recognize the surface proteins that trigger our bodies to fight off the infection, that would call into question the idea of quickly exposing the entire population to establish generalized immunity to the virus. I pray that our scientists find solutions to these troubling probabilities.
Well then, you must have been praying very, very hard, during the 2017-2018 flu season [65,000 dead in the US], the 20181-2019 flu season [60,000+ dead in the US] and at the start of the 2019-2020 flu season [20,000+ dead in the US in half a season]. And, that is with prophylactics[vaccines] and proven therapeutic treatments.
Please explain why you believe that the COVID viruses are significantly deadlier than seasonal flu. We would all like to know the answer to that.
At least in New York, the death lists alone prove that. No previous flu season has ever seen a toll like this.
Of course previous flu seasons have had deaths this high or higher. NYC is a disaster. The near bankruptcy of Hell on the Hudson worsened the economic recession of the early 1970s. Now, that city of 8.3 million has half the COVID deaths of the ENTIRE country. Why? Could it be padded statistics? Could it be a lack of medical facilities? Could it be an environment conducive to the rampant spread of infectious diseases? Could it be all three? And, 20,000 deaths from COVID is only one third of the flu deaths in the two preceding flu seasons. If we double the number of COVID deaths for 2019-2020, then we only have two thirds of the fatalities from flu in the preceding two seasons.
No, they did not. The cold hard numbers at the funeral chapels in my community show it. Nobody there remembers ever having this many funerals, or having to put out a call for volunteer drivers to take the bodies to the cemetery. We’ve never had this many families in mourning simultaneously before.
The number of bodies arriving at the same time cannot be padded.
Hi zev, welcome to LI. Yes to all of that.
Sorry, Zev, but you are wrong. We have CDC statistics which show that the last two flu seasons alone produced 60,000 deaths from flu each year. That is much higher than the current death toll. And, we strongly suspect that COVID death statistics are being padded. The CDC issued a directive to count as a COVID death not only persons having symptoms of the virus, who also test positive for infection, not just exposure, but any case which is suspected or could possibly attributed COVID. So how many cases of influenza and pneumonia are being counted as COVID related which are not? The fact that Medicare pays $3000 for treatment of pneumonia, $13,000 for similar treatment for COVID and $30,000 for COVIF treatment requiring a ventilator provides a monetary incentive to list cases as COVID related, whether they are or not. And, I am sure that no one in NYC would ever pad statistics to get more money.
Mac45, screw your CDC statistics. The death count cannot lie. Zev pointed out to you that the number of deaths now is completely unprecedented. We did not have this during any flu season. We didn’t have it during SARS or MERS or any of those. The sheer number of dead people, of funerals and mourning families, are not a statistic, they are a fact. These are not numbers on a chart, they area people we know, people whose families we know. And they keep coming. This cannot be denied.
I wonder if the strain that hit the West Coast is the milder form while the one that went to Europe (esp Italy) was more virulent and nailed the East Coast. The faint of the West Coast being hit first permitted a deeper penetration into the East Coast before exploding.
There is still something missing in all of this. Yes it’s bad but I wonder if intel points to intentional and that means something no one wants to ponder… a response to an NBC.
I think the best comparison is the Communist Chinese organ harvesting.
The west coast is the most COMMUNISTest friendly area of the whole nation. Lots and lots of communist Chinese immigrants to the West Coast and lots and lots of business with the west coast to communist China means you would want the Harvest those organs even if you strike at the heart of the so-called donor.
And the Heart of the donor is the financial center, New York City.
My, you’re grouchy this morning. I make a perfectly legitimate comment to Leslie’s story and you attack me as though I personally engineered the virus in my bathtub. I thought the LI blog was designed for civilized commentators, which I try to be. Personal attacks are not necessary nor welcome. I realize that this is a stressful time for all of us, but just try and get your point across in a respectful manner.
Anyway, as Leslie noted in her excellent postings, Covid-19 is different than seasonal flu for a number of reasons. The death rate so far (not gross numbers, which are irrelevant to a discussion of severity) is significantly higher than seasonal flu. Even with strict isolation protocols throughout the world over 120,000 people have died. It is a “novel” virus, which means that people have no natural immunity to this disease. As Leslie mentioned today, it appears to attack T cells, which the seasonal flu does not. And, as I mentioned in my comment, it is possible a rapid mutation may be occurring which would prevent a herd immunity as happens with the seasonal flu. All these issues are being investigated by scientists must wiser than you or I – and yes, I do pray daily for them and everyone impacted by this horrible disease. I hope others do, too.
Out of an abundance of caution, do please scrub your bathtub thoroughly and disinfect it before letting the Calgon take you away. Bathe safe! 😉 😀
Oh MrE, I began relying on showers a long time ago! About the only thing I do to our bathtub is dust it out now & then. Pro tip- It’s also much easier to wash the dogs in a shower.
It’s even easier not to have dogs! (cat guy, here – they clean themselves) 😉
Actually I wouldn’t mind having a cat or two, but my husband is highly allergic to them and one needs to be careful not to sneeze around people these days.
I get tired of people who have drunk and continue to drink the KoolAid.
1), statistically, terms of raw numbers, the COVID virus has not proven to be significantly more deadly than seasonal flu strains. Remember, we have vaccines for most seasonal flu strains as well as therapeutic treatment regimens. With those in place for COVID, we are most likely looking at mortality rates the equivalent of season flu, or possibly lower.
2) the mandatory sequestration f the healthy population has proven to be largely ineffective in stopping the spread of the COVID virus. Look at NYC as a benchmark. We are now back to supplementing draconian social seclusion methods with FACE MASKS. Something which has been done for decades worldwide to mitigate flu viruses. And, when masks were being discouraged, we did not see hordes of grocery store employees dropping like flies from COVID, even though such establishments became the equivalent of the local watering hole. Why was that?
3) By all means trust the scientists. The same ones who gave us the global warming hockey stick. The same ones who claimed that we were going to see millions dead in the US, even with mandatory social seclusion. Their track record, on COVID is so bad, that Fauci has been going on CNN to try to distance himself from his own recommendations, which he now admits Trump actually listened to and encouraged.
Now, it is interesting that all of the people who are criticizing Trump for not doing enough early enough are the same ones who touted the encouragement that people not wear masks in public to control the spread of the disease. As more evidence is accumulated on COVID, the less dangerous it appears, as an infectious disease. what has proven to be very dangerous is a media and political establishment which is eager to destroy the global economy using a disease which is not that dangerous. And, even after all of the hoopla has proven to be false, they are still out there warning that it could come back. Well, I have news for them, it will probably be back in the fall, in the Norther Hemisphere, just like Swine Flu and every other flu virus in the world. So, what is he plan for the fall? Shut down the global economy again? Put 30-70 percent of the global work force out of work? Wear masks everywhere? Or treat it like we do seasonal flu and do NOTHING?
I’m on board with you, as far as #2 and #3. But the so-called vaccines and therapies for the seasonal flu don’t actually work. A good year for the flu shot is 20% effective (at reducing deaths and hospitalizations). The therapies (i.e. Tamiflu) come with horrible side effects and only purport to reduce the duration of the infection by 2 days.
I think people need to stop putting their healthcare in the hands of doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Medicine is big business. They’re not really selling health; they’re selling health care. Doctors, hospitals, and scientists are not doing their work for charity or philanthropy. (The only person more arrogant than a doctor? A philanthropist.)
The human body can heal, if it has the right building blocks. Almost every medicine only blocks symptoms (or the perception of symptoms). Not a single one cures the cause of disease. None.
Re your #3, certainly we should not trust modelers. The whole topic of modeling needs drastic review. But that doesn’t extend to other topics.
Mac45 – A question about #1
Is it reasonable to compare Wuhan Flu numbers with ordinary seasonal flu numbers? When has the US ever taken the kinds of precautionary measures against the ordinary flu that have been taken against the Wuhan Flu?
The comparison has an apples vs. oranges feel to me in the sense that the one we took drastic measures to slow the spread, while the other is allowed to spread unchecked.
What would Wuhan flu have been like if we’d treated it like the common flu?
Oh GTL, let’s not paint with too broad a brush here. I’m alive today because when my heart valve failed due to damage caused by the rheumatic fever I had as a child (no vaccine was available in the early 1950’s), I sought treatment from several highly trained physicians. Now, I suppose I could have gone to a Naturopath or just simply died, but thanks to modern medicine (and a pig who generously “donated” its aortic valve), I’ve managed to meet several more grand babies and – apparently- annoy a few people on this site. Life is good and medicine saves lives.
GTL – Flu vaccines are from 20%-60% effective, depending upon the strain if flu involved. So, there is a prophylactic effect in play, even if it isn’t very much. As for flu therapies, several exist. And, they have various success rates based upon flu strain and when the therapy is initiated. At present, there is no vaccine for COVID and the therapies are all untested.
MrE – Let’s look at the response to various flu seasons. In the last 20 years, we have had a fatality number of from 12,000 – 65,000, in the US, with most years running between 40,000 and 60,000 deaths. So, far in the 2019-2020 flu season, we had 20,000 deaths attributed to influenza, in the first half of the season. In the second half of the season, having changed the reporting procedures to make virtually every pulmonary death and many other deaths attributable to COVID, we have less than 25,000 deaths from that virus. So, we can say, with some sense of certainty, that COVID is very likely not significantly more deadly H1N1 and similar strains of flu. Now, let’s look at what the “mitigation” procedures actually accomplished. The first thing to understand is that masks were not used until the last week, by the general population. And, with restaurants and other similar businesses closed or severely restricted, more people are making more trips to the grocery store than two months ago. And, social distancing is almost non-existent in grocery stores. Yet, we have seen no significant spike in deaths, or even hospitalizations among grocery store employees.
Now, as you point out, the US [and the rest of the Western World] has never, in modern history, shut down entire nations and economies, especially the Global economy, in response to an outbreak of an infectious disease. So, why would they do it in the case of COVID? It is insane, on its face. Why would the wearing of masks and quarantining those with symptoms and sequestering those most at risk be insufficient to curtail the spread of the virus? After all, these steps were never attempted. We have no idea if they would have been effective at all or how effective they would have been. What did the leaders of every industrialized country in the world do? They closed their economies. Threw their citizens out of work. And, now they are saying it didn’t work and we all have to wear masks and continue to practice social distancing. Remember this, in a typical flu season, the cases usually spike in January, three months after the flu season starts. In the case of COVID, it hit the US in January and is thought to be peaking in April, three months later. So flu v COVID = apples and oranges? I don’t think so.
Thanks for your reply, Mac45. I really don’t know about the relative infectious level of flu vs covid – we’ve been erring on the side of caution since we are seniors and have underlying health conditions that could have made it very hard on us.
I’ve no doubt this was a desperate power-grab – and believe it was pre-planned in the sense that the power hungry were just waiting for cover / distraction to launch. So for my wife and I, it’s not a matter of drinking kool-aid – just caution. Little of this passes the sniff test.
GTL is spot-on 100% accurate. Today’s medical profession or healthcare industry is all about continuing illness and expanding diseases so they can have an ever-expanding bottom line with more profits.
So, the Chinese lie to the entire world, about this virus, and continue to do so and now we are supposed to believe a bunch of Chinese “researchers”? You people do realize that the Chinese government controls what scientists, and everyone else, publishes, right?
I’m not sure they’re “Chinese” researchers, as much as they work for the WHO and Bill Gates. It’s possible that China is a victim, too.
Bloomberg News Killed a Story About Communist China’s Ruling Class Getting Capitalistically Super-Wealthy, In Order to Maintain Favor; Bloomberg Then Went After the Reporter and Even His Wife – Ace of Spades
If they contracted coronavirus (COVID-19), only 18% of Democrat voters – as well as of the wealthiest Americans – would take the drug hydroxychloroquine, which doctors have prescribed for decades to treat malaria and might be effective against the deadly virus, a new national Rasmussen Reports survey shows.
“If you were diagnosed with COVID-19, would you take the drug Hydroxychloroquine?”
Yes, Would Take: 31%
No, Would Not Take: 35%
Not Sure: 34%
But, among Democrat Americans, nearly three times as many would not try the drug (46%) as would (18%), with 36% saying they’re “not sure” what they’d do.
Likewise, just 18% of those with annual incomes of at least $200,000 say they’d take hydroxychloroquine if they had coronavirus, while 56% would not (26% “not sure”).
99.9% would take whatever their doctor prescribed
Of course they would. They Appealed to Authority, and an Authority OK’d it. It’s not like they had to decide on their own, or anything.
Leslie, wasn’t there a very early- Jan 2020- report out of India that linked the Wuhan/Covid19/Li Wenliang flu* virus with the AIDS virus? A segment or segments of RNA that matched AIDS? The early report was revised or withdrawn, I think.
*We should honor Dr. Li Wenliang’s memory and courage for trying to warn the world about this new flu.
I heard about that subcontinent Indian lab report. But all I heard about it was that the report said it was a really strange virus with several weird or unusual traits.
From what I read about that subcontinent Indian lab report it almost said it was a man-made virus but didn’t quite come out and state it that boldly.
The Wa Po has an interesting article today that is a must-read. It contends the State Dept. sent cables in 2018 about the bat virus research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/
Good article by Rogan. For those not already subscribed to WaPo or not wanting to subscribe, here’s a good overview from National Review.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/v/s/www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/14/the-washington-post-goes-rogue-china-lab-in-focus-of-coronavirus-outbreak/amp/%3famp_js_v=0.1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%253D#ampf=
That is very disturbing if true, especially when you consider how infectious this virus is! Makes it all the more important to make a viable vaccine and quick!
Foreign medical papers had mentioned this early on but were attacked by the propaganda machine for saying it was AIDS-like.
Airborne AIDS is not a lab developed bioweapon. It developed naturally in bats and just happened to accidentally jump species and spread to humans in China. The Chinese communist party tried to warn the world as soon as it found out about it but the phone was broken.
If this is a bio-weapon aimed at the US or at the West, then they did a horrible job. I can imagine every puny terrorist group right now is kidnapping biologists to develop new colds and release new diseases into our cities.
It did a great job… attrition without total destruction… think neutron bomb. Sun Tzu would approve. It takes a major facility to produce such a virus plus one needs a delivery system. China is sitting pretty good right now.
Given how hard the Chinese are working to throttle those in the media who were calling it the Chinese virus, or Wuhan virus there is almost no doubt that it escaped from one of the labs in/near Wuhan. This is going to cost the CCP dearly.
Not if the Democrats and media have anything to say about it.
It looks to me like the evidence is growing that this material came from a lab, mainly because the bats are far away, and the lab where the bats are being studied is quite close to where the disease showed up.
It’s awfully clear that the Chinese government response to everything is to lie and cover up.
Is this therefore inevitably a bioweapon? I would say probably not, because human stupidity and a tyrannical, secretive government go plenty far enough to explain the entire sequence of events.
Ah, but were they running unethical and dangerous experiments in that lab that they may want to cover up, now? That possibility is on the table. The Chinese government has a consistent pattern of allowing unethical experimentation in human genetics and organ harvesting from political prisoners. Why would they stop at dangerous and unethical viral recombination?
Again, how do you know the bats are far away, and that they’re not sold at the wet market? There is only one source for this claim, and it’s just some random person posting on an internet site. There is no way for us to know whether it is true.
Also, why are you dismissing the reports that pangolins may have been involved in the transmission chain? Even that one source did not claim that pangolins were not sold in the wet market.
Leslie,
You really need to put a huge caveat into this article. Anyone who has worked in biomedical research knows that in vitro studies of this nature are limited in their correlation to in vivo realities. It’s a unique finding for sure, but not something that correlates to HIV just because it can enter immune cells in a culture dish.