Trump: “high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the origin of this virus”
Q. “Have you seen anything at this point that gives you a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the origin of this virus?” A. “Yes I have. Yes I have.”
So here we are.
It’s been moving in this direction for a while, but the thought and speech police would not permit the suggestion that the Wuhan coronavirus started at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That was a ‘conspiracy theory’ and xenophobic. After all, this was a “bat virus” not a Wuhan virus, we were told.
On MSNBC on Wednesday, NBC’s Engel said, “It’s easy to scapegoat people and that is what has always happened when there have been pandemics or epidemics…. There was lots and lots of scapegoating against an ethnic group or a religious group whenever there were pandemics that affected the society and frightened a lot of people.”
“And China certainly feels that’s what’s happening now with people calling it the ‘Wuhan flu’ or the ‘Wuhan virus’ or the ‘China virus,'” he said.
“This is a virus that came from the territory of China but came from bats,” stressed Engel.
“This is a bat virus, not a China virus,” he said.
“It doesn’t speak Chinese,” he noted. “It doesn’t target Chinese people. It targets human beings who happen to touch their eyes, nose or mouth.”
Kudos to Leslie for being one of the first to cover this topic, back on February 16, 2020, Wuhan Virus Watch: Chinese university researchers believe virus may originate from government laboratory:
While most early reports indicated a market close to Wuhan was the source of the original COVID-19 infections, there was skepticism about this theory.
Sen. Tom Cotton suggested that Chinese officials misled the public on the origins of the novel coronavirus that has killed at least 362 people and infected more than 17,400 others, saying it may have originated in a “superlaboratory.”
If the market was not the source of the pathogen, what was? Researchers at the Beijing-sponsored South China University of Technology now conclude that the coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan….
The full report is here, including this conclusion:
In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous laboratories. Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from city center and other densely populated places.
The attempt to silence legitimate inquiry into the Wuhan Lab was politically motivated. Anything that made the Chinese government look bad was treated by the mainstream media and Democrats as serving Trump’s interest. Blaming (and naming) China was seen as interference in the attempt to blame Trump.
But over time, the sheer force of emerging evidence forced even the mainstream media to consider, the possibility, MSM Can No Longer Ignore Theory That Wuhan Coronavirus Spread From a Chinese Lab Accident.
I have little doubt that our intelligence agencies now know where and how the virus emerged and spread in Wuhan. And by this stage, that information has been passed on to Trump.
So Trump’s answer to a question today is very telling:
John Roberts (Fox News):
“Have you seen anything at this point that gives you a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the origin of this virus?”
President Trump:
“Yes I have. Yes I have.”
.@johnrobertsFox: "Have you seen anything at this point that gives you a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the origin of this virus?"
President Trump: "Yes I have. Yes I have."
Full video here: https://t.co/tl2r5ZGz8B pic.twitter.com/7BKScTkQsL
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 30, 2020
The usual dodge of the mainstream media is to conflate that the virus leaked from a lab, with the virus being engineered as a bioweapon or otherwise, and to dismiss the lack of evidence of the latter to discredit the former. That dodge no longer is possible.
That the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab makes perfect sense based on what we’ve observed. The obsessive Chinese secrecy at the start, the lies, the cover up, and the obfuscation. There likely was panic in the Chinese government when it realized what had happened, but it was too late, they couldn’t put the virus back in the lab, and they didn’t want to admit what had happened. We are all paying the price now.
UPDATE: I WAS WRONG
I was wrong. Our mainstream media is so corrupt, they are still conflating the virus leaking from the lab with the virus being created in the lab in order to dunk on Trump.
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1255996874483433472
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Comments
You wouldn’t put a nuclear testing facility near a population center. Why a biologic facility?
Forget about that Jake, it’s a China town.
Fauci gave that Wuhan lab hundreds of millions in funding.
Hmmmmmmmm…….. And now same wants to sell us cures….
Fauci needs to be elbowed off the stage.
Anyone who is a knee-jerk hillary clinton supporter – and ass kisser, as he is – is either a corrupt hack, or dumb as a rock.
Either way: fauci is qualified for NOTHING in the Trump era of American greatness and honesty in government.
Add to it his little asides to the worst bastards in the corrupt media. He’s a little creep, and his both his honesty and his judgment are not trustworthy. Unless you’re hillary clinton.
The Scary Connection Between Fauci And The Clintons:
http://newshourfirst.com/2020/03/31/the-scary-connection-between-fauci-and-the-clintons/
Would not surprise me if he’s on the Chinese payroll and has been for years.
$3.7M is not hundreds of millions. And there’s no reason that grant shouldn’t have been made.
Actually, it was $3.7 million.
“Why a biologic facility?”
Because they needed human shields.
We do it here as well.
Because the people you hope to hire to work there have lives and families and won’t want to move to the middle of nowhere.
Why is that? Given what we now know about the problem of density, we should be encouraging dispersion of research, finance, equity transaction, etc., rather than let it continue to be held by NYC and other crowded urban areas.
Would I trade living in Kansas City for New York City? In a heart beat.
But, buy, Bill Gates said it isn’t so.
If not purposely, at least inadvertently/incompetently
CCP Communist Central Planning
Then they took deliberate actions to infect the rest of the world with it.
The president issues a fair proportion of off-the-cuff speculative comments which are not good to be taken seriously. But this is not one of them.
I have zero special or privileged knowledge about this, but I would not be at all surprised if it was an exotic virus collected from elsewhere in China being studied in the lab that got out, or one of that family of viruses being studied and also altered in the lab which got out. Funny thing, we were paying that lab in Wuhan to do studies of… Wait for it… exotic/dangerous Bat coronavirus of the SARS family. So yeah the president probably does know a little more than he’s letting on.
I am pretty confident it was not deliberately released, but that’s not the point DJT is making.
The end result is the same, and Chi-na deliberately infected the rest of the world.
Bioweapon even if found in nature.
Mideval armies catapulted dead, infectious human bodies into walled enemy towns and cities and that also was use of bioweapons.
Obviously I don’t have access to intelligence data, but I do have access to intelligence. Specifying the origin as one of the two labs is more than plausible. It is the most likely explanation, given that the PRC will not open up for independent investigation. Our own state department expressed concern about these labs containment protocols.
I don’t believe that the PRC intentionally released this virus. I do believe that, once they came to grips with the degree of threat, the PRC intentionally misled the rest of the world.
The PRC did so in order to to exploit the situation to the extent it was possible to do so. Certainly that much is clear. The PRC has squandered whatever goodwill they possessed through this deceit. They know this, which is why they are pushing ahead with more restrictions on Hong Kong, brazenly declaring sovereignty over the south China sea and extorting many nations through their one belt one road program.
In sum, the PRC may not have introduced the virus intentionally but they sure as Heck intentionally lied about what they did know and continue to exploit the situation to their benefit.
While it could be possible this was an accidental release, the timing and China profiting off it makes the release suspicious at the very least.
This all happened shortly after the trade deal where it was widely seen as China on the losing side of the deal with President Trump. At the time of the deal there was wide speculation that something would likely happen to free China from the trade deal made.
Now we have also seen that China made moves to patent the medicine which is being fast tracked as a treatment, and which Dr. Fouci is gushing over. The media is gushing over this medication as well, which given their leftist ties and the politicians of the left in particular who are bought and paid for by China, it looks even worse.
Add to that all the manipulation over medical supplies that China has pulled. The travel from Wuhan to various corners of the world. Along with the cover up and the propaganda being pushed in favor of China.
I recall reading somewhere that China has been working on biological warfare. I am sure most countries work on such things, as they are able to alter many of these to target ethnic groups more readily, or have vaccines developed prior to release.
If this was accidentally released, China still has positioned itself to take full advantage of it. Yet, too many pieces all have fallen into place to think this hasn’t been game planned a bit too well.
oldgoat36,
IMO, the virus got loose due to poor containment protocols.
Once loose the PRC took full advantage of the opportunity this virus spreading gave them. The PRC is still taking advantage and will continue to do so as long as they are able to use this opportunity to advance their interests. No argument from me on those points.
In my opinion, they much more than “intentionally misled the rest of the world”. Per Trump’s virus update this evening, they shut off air travel to the rest of China from Wuhan, but not to the rest of the world. If true, how is this not an act of biological warfare designed, at a minimum, to cripple the economies of the rest of the unsuspecting world? (With Biden they will get away with it.)
Yes, if China and the CCP had jumped out in front at the beginning they would have looked stellar. But commies do what commies do. Then to really show what they wanted to do… let it out with thousands of Wuhan flu positive citizens flying to major countries. As Mark Steyn has noted..if you wanted to intentionally hit your competitors, the nations with the highest deaths and rates are USA, IK, France, Italy, Belgium (EU headquarters) and Spain … now with Germany possibly moving up. Even if unintentional release… intention spread.
” If true…”
Absolutely true. This is not even questioned. You were allowed to leave wuhan as long as you were traveling internationally.
Yes. Don’t dare try to visit Peking and Winnie the Poo, Dict for Life
It may not have been a bioweapon when it was first released, but the Chinese leaders made choices to ensure it evolved into one. So the difference between this virus and a real bioweapon now is purely cosmetic.
Leslie,
As a practical matter you are correct. The PRC definitely used the opportunity to advance their own interests and placed their opportunity above the health of the rest of humanity.
Intentionally advancing one’s interests with a pandemic is an act of war. While they might be able to get off the hook on a few “mistakes”, the picture painted by the sum total of their actions is clear.
Spot on.
The point is entirely academic now.
Exactly.
And then you have to ask, what would the communist party in China do do differently if they wished to wreck the economy of the west…
America needs to quickly mobilize to produce all crucial items ourselves, religating China to solely nonessential items, like toys and bamboo backscratchers.
Gene splicing leaves clear traces, and those traces are not present. On the other hand, one could steer the how it evolved by creating condition conducive to that. For example exposing both animals and humans until the leap from species to species occurred, and then looking at mortality rate. Once an especially lethal strain emerged, then turn in loose, while confining the area, and then allowing expendable people to travel around the world. This scenario is consistent with the nature of the CCP, the virus and and subsequent facts of its spread.
I hope and pray that our young fifth columnists keep it up.
I’ve got a slightly different perspective on this. They’re closing the USDA Plum Island Animal Disease center and moving it to Kansas State University right up the road from me. The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility will be a level-4 research facility hardened against accidental or intentional release of some very nasty bugs. (and I certainly hope they take better care of them than the China facility)
I pray you’ll be up hill & up wind of the plant that’s to be up the road from you.
Is that Ted Baxter asking the question?
You can scarcely call it an accident when the Lab modifies a virus to infect people, and it infects people.
Accident?
Not at all.
Yeah, it could be an accident. Viruses get modified all the time, all over the world. The subject matter of the research was infectivity. It’s an important topic. That’s why it was being done at a Level 4 research facility, and they STILL were not careful enough.
Yeah, and so I have to ask:
What the heck did they expect???
They expected the same as we expect when we handle such substances. That it would be properly contained. But of course they botched it, and when they realized what had happened they panicked and tried to cover it up. That sometimes happens even in our society; it’s certainly what happens in corrupt communist societies. Look at Chernobyl.
Actually, you have no fookin idea what “they” expected, Milhouse. you are often a fair and objective commenter here, but you are losing cred with this sort of nonsense.
This virus is mutating on its own (as many virus strains do). There’s like 8 strains so far, tracked here.
https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global
They did not modify it. “The virus was not manmade or genetically modified”.
That statement is absolute. Please share your research with us. Show us the links because this is earth shattering news. We have an investigative genius in our midst – someone who can prove, beyond any doubt, that “They did not modify it.”
My friends and family will sleep a little easier tonight knowing that Milhouse knows everything about the origins of the virus, that he has access to the proof that “They did not modify it.” Especially after they read your findings.
Evidence points to it not being modified by gene splicing, so Milhouse is right, I have addressed in another post how CCP could have helped nature along in the lab with use of genetic engineering.
I don’t have to show any research, that was a direct quote, as you would know if you’d read the article before commenting on it. That’s my “research”.
Sorry, Milhouse, but you are not credible here. You stated affirmatively “They did not modify it.”. You have no fooking idea about that. HYou complain that someone challenges you for source. Then you quote the article as your “source”. Sorry, but that is not a source for your direct statement. You lose bud.
An infectious virus, created intentionally in a lab. Created as a weapon and released to the world. It was unthinkable, until it happened.
I’ve said it before but I’ll keep saying it as long as I have to. The Wuhan virus could not possibly have been created in a lab as a bioweapon because it kills all the wrong people. The Chinese Lung Aids kills all the wrong people; the elderly (on average the very elderly between 79-80 y.o.) and those with immune systems have already been compromised due to some underlying health condition. I don’t remember to many details about the article such as where I read it, who wrote it, and the name of the doctor. But I vividly recall a couple of details; he had never lost a patient under 60 to the disease who didn’t have an underlying health condition and he named diabetes as one such condition.
Perhaps the armed forces know what they’re doing. Anyone who develops diabetes is medically retired. But young healthy adults who form nearly the entirety of personnel in the armed forces who are infected are mostly going to be asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms.
Children are apparently relatively unaffected by the Chinese virus and apparently there has never been a case in which a child has infected an adult (so there was never a legitimate reason to close schools, just that children with immunological disorders should have done distance learning).
The Chinese government has impressed me with its incompetence. But even they had to realize that the Wuhan flu would be the most piss poor bioweapon ever conceived.
maybe CCP bred the virus as a means to stop revolts? Most certainly China would benefit from getting rid of their old people. Or maybe it was designed to give China economic advantage? Plausible deniability?
Of course, it could have been incompetence, followed by scheming to take advantage of the situation. Does it matter, they did it and now we need to make the CCP very sorry.
No, that did not happen, and the only reason you would spread such obviously paranoid nonsense is in order to discredit anyone who points to the likelihood that it came from a lab. And the only reason you would want to do that is because the Chinese are paying you.
Given that we now know Chinese agents are sowing discord via American social media, your point is well taken.
Chinese Embassy Tweets Racist Cartoon Bashing U.S. Over Virus Response. (Twitter – attack? What attack?)
https://www.weaselzippers.us/448045-chinese-embassy-in-france-twitter-account-shares-cartoon-bashing-u-s-over-virus-response/
Racist?! There’s nothing at all racist about it, any more than attacks on China over this are racist.
Things that make you go Hmmmmmm…….
Pompeo: WHO Leader Traveled to China and Declined To Declare a Pandemic Until The World Knew
And yet Dems still defend China and the WHO
https://www.weaselzippers.us/448028-pompeo-who-leader-traveled-to-china-and-declined-to-declare-a-pandemic-until-the-world-knew/
Not considered is how a Pres. Hillary Clinton would have (mis) handled the pandemic. I would posit that there would have been a much longer delay in shutting down country and a longer delay in getting back up…if ever. I say this because of the expected chumminess without the need for a reset button and adherence to WHO position.
We have been hit with an intended “biological” and all the Left cares about is dumping Trump.
I’ve posted this link a few times and it was in my first comment posted on this subject back in February.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/covid-19-man-made-virus-hiv-discoverer-says-could-only-have-been-created-lab
Right from the very beginning, Dr. Luc Montagnier, the scientist who discovered the HIV virus which earned him a Nobel prize in 2008, declared that there is no way this virus mutated naturally. It was developed intentionally in a lab.
Dr. Fauci’s reputation on fighting HIV and AIDS is founded on this guy’s work. I don’t know if he is right but why is he NOT in the conversation? Has has anyone proven him wrong? If so, somebody please show me so I can drop this.
1. Zerohedge.
2. Montagnier ‘went emeritus’ and become an HIV denialist, that is he denies that HIV causes AIDS. Oddly, he hasn’t volunteered to be inoculated with HIV to prove his theory.
3. Nature does not much care what you, me or Doc Hasbeen thinks she can or cannot do.
I never heard of that but I’ll look into it. I must say it very hard to believe a scientist would reject the crowning achievement of his life’s work. And to accomplish what? His statement on the Wuhan virus seems to confirm his original findings on HIV.
Okay, I’ve researched this. It’s complicated but the credit for who discovered HIV is at the center of the controversy, NOT that Montagnier (BTW, it’s a “he” not a “she”… nice research) later reputed that HIV causes AIDS. His rival was a Dr. Gallo who also claimed the discovery but HE is the one who first claimed that HIV causes AIDS. Montagnier had not come to that conclusion having left the issue at “remains to be determined”. After a very contentious period of political squabbling, the dispute was settled AND they collaborated to further their research together!!!
So let’s sum up here.
1. Your first challenge to my statement was that I linked to Zero Hedge. I’m an RIA and have reading ZH for 20 years or so. I have command of my own opinions and trust my ability to navigate through even the most corrupt and biased sources of information with integrity and come away with good information. I have found ZH to be a robust source of good information. They are usually correct albeit they rush to judgement IMHO but my only criticism is their blind commitment to Ron Paul libertarianism.
2. Your declaration about “Ms” Montagnier is flat out false.
3. ?????? WTF???????
Get out of whatever echo chamber it is you are parked in. There is no liberal truth nor conservative truth. There is only truth and it is hard enough to figuring what that is without infecting your reasoning with bias. Next time you post lies, PROVE THEM. You didn’t even know Montagnier is a man!
Mutations can be steered, selected and then ideal conditions created for further mutations. No gene splicing required.
I recall news reports that China was initially using drugs for AIDS to treat patients. Why would one do that if this is merely a naturally occurring – or even “steered” – relative of the cold or flu?
Thanks.
So that is the same as animal breeding.
We would not say that Hereford cattle are “man made” but they have been deliberately bred for certain goals.