Damning new report finds China lab leak most likely source of COVID-19 — and blames US for pumping millions into the dangerous research; Fauci denies seeking to suppress COVID-19 lab leak origin theory, and other C-Virus related stories
Damning new report finds China lab leak most likely source of COVID-19 — and blames US for pumping millions into the dangerous research:
A damning new report found that the COVID-19 virus most likely leaked from a Chinese lab — and that the US bears responsibility for pumping tens of millions of dollars into high-risk research on extremely infectious viruses at a facility with weak safety protocols.
The analysis by Alina Chan, a Harvard and MIT molecular biologist, was published as a guest essay in the New York Times, a publication which was for a long time skeptical and dismissive of the lab leak theory.
It comes as Dr. Anthony Fauci faces a grilling before a House panel on Monday over his backing for the research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Chan — who has long advocated more study of the “lab leak theory” — said that until recently, “reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for truth” in getting to the bottom of the pandemic’s origin.
If the theory is correct, the global pandemic — which claimed 1 million lives in the US and at lest 25 million around the world — is “the most costly accident in the history of science,” Chan, the co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19,” wrote.
Her findings paint an alarming picture of how the virus was sourced in China, supercharged for maximum infectiousness with US government support, and ultimately allowed to escape under inadequate containment conditions.
Where did COVID originate?
Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology spent more than a decade looking for SARS-like viruses, led by Dr. Shi Zhengli, to learn more about how they infect humans.
Their research determined that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the pandemic, was known to exist in bats located around 1,000 miles away from Wuhan.
Shi’s team made multiple trips to southwestern China and Laos to collect samples of the virus, during which samples traveled through “hundreds” of large cities on their way back to the Wuhan lab. —>READ MORE HERE
Fauci denies seeking to suppress COVID-19 lab leak origin theory:
Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Monday denied attempting to suppress the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic began as a result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China, during his opening statement before the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Lawmakers proceeded to grill Fauci throughout the hearing on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s six-feet distancing rule, the masking of schoolchildren and other pandemic-era restrictions.
Fauci testified affirmatively each time when asked by Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, if business closures, church closures, school closures and stay at home order were justified, adding that “again, this was when we were trying to stop the tsunami of deaths that were occurring early on – how long you kept them going is debatable.”
Asked again about mask mandates, including those for children under the age of 5, Fauci said those were in the context of the time “when 5,000 people a day were dying.”
“Mask mandates for children under the age of five? There’s scientific evidence supporting that?” the congressman asked.
“There was no study that did masks on kids before,” Fauci admitted. “You couldn’t do the study. You had to respond to an epidemic that was killing 4-5,000 Americans a day.”
Fauci also attempted to clarify an earlier statement that the six-foot social distancing rule “just appeared,” telling committee members that “it actually came from the CDC.”
“The CDC was responsible for those kinds of guidelines for schools, not me. So when I said that, it just appeared. It appeared. Was there any science behind it? What I meant by no science behind it is that there wasn’t a controlled trial. That said, compare six foot with three feet with ten feet. So there wasn’t that scientific evaluation of it. What I believe the CDC used for their reason to say six feet is that studies years ago showed that when you’re dealing with droplets, which at the time that the CDC made that recommendation, it was felt that the transmission was primarily through droplet, not aerosol, which is incorrect because we know now aerosol does play a role. That’s the reason why they did it. It had little to do with me since I didn’t make the recommendation.”
Fauci also defended vaccine mandates for students, employees and the military by stating, “Vaccines save lives. It is very, very clear that vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions worldwide.” —>READ MORE HERE
Follow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
The key moments when Dr. Anthony Fauci contradicted himself during heated COVID hearing
House COVID chair slams Dr. Fauci for his ‘hypocrisy’ during pandemic in June 3 hearing
USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates
YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates
NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest
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