Update (1620ET): According to Defense One editor Kevin Baron, Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted that the DoD has looked into the theory that COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan laboratory.
“There’s a lot of rumor and speculation in a wide variety of media, blog sites, etc.,” said Milley. “It should be no surprise to you that we have taken a keen interest in that, and we have had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that.”
“At this point it’s inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural, but we do not know for sure,” Milley added.
Those words are going to fuel a lifetime of additional conspiracy theories and speculation. But the tone of his voice was pretty dismissive of the idea, and he stressed that they've looked hard. "Hard." And "the weight of evidence leans towards natural."
— Kevin Baron (@DefenseBaron) April 14, 2020
Keep in mind that several theories are floating around with varying degrees of evidence to support them.
COVID-19 is a natural bat coronavirus which was studied in Wuhan and accidentally leaked from the biolab.
COVID-19 is an engineered bioweapon which either escaped or was released on purpose from the Wuhan laboratory.
COVID-19 was created in the US at Ft. Detrick (USAMRIID) and the deep state released it last October to frame China and derail the global economy.
The US State Department received two cables from US Embassy officials in 2018 warning of inadequate safety at a Wuhan, China biolab conducting ‘risky studies’ on bat coronaviruses, according to the Washington Post, which notes that the cables have “fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus.”
A US delegation led by Jamison Fouss, the consul general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy’s counselor of environment, science, technology and health took the unusual step of repeatedly visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) - which had become China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (BSL-4) in 2015. The last of the visits, which occurred on March 27, 2018, was documented on WIV’s website and subsequently scrubbed (archive).
US officials were so concerned by what they saw that they warned of a potential pandemic stemming from the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses.
What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic. -Washington Post
“During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” reads a January, 2018 cable drafted by two officials from the embassy’s environment, science and health sections who met with scientists from the WIV.
Interestingly, the Chinese researchers were receiving assistance from the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and other U.S. organizations, however the Chinese had requested additional help. Consequently, the cables warned that the US should give the WIV additional support because of how dangerous the research on bat coronaviruses was.
As the cable noted, the U.S. visitors met with Shi Zhengli, the head of the research project, who had been publishing studies related to bat coronaviruses for many years. In November 2017, just before the U.S. officials’ visit, Shi’s team had published research showing that horseshoe bats they had collected from a cave in Yunnan province were very likely from the same bat population that spawned the SARS coronavirus in 2003.
“Most importantly,” the cable warns, “the researchers also showed that various SARS-like coronaviruses can interact with ACE2, the human receptor identified for SARS-coronavirus. This finding strongly suggests that SARS-like coronaviruses from bats can be transmitted to humans to cause SARS-like diseases. From a public health perspective, this makes the continued surveillance of SARS-like coronaviruses in bats and study of the animal-human interface critical to future emerging coronavirus outbreak prediction and prevention.”
Shi and other researchers have strongly denied that the new virus known as 2019-nCoV came from WIV, after her team was the first to publicly report it.
According to the report, the bat coronavirus research was aimed at preventing the next SARS-like pandemic “by anticipating how it might emerge,” however according to the report “even in 2015, other scientists questioned whether Shi’s team was taking unnecessary risks.”
In October 2014, the U.S. government had imposed a moratorium on funding of any research that makes a virus more deadly or contagious, known as “gain-of-function” experiments.
WaPo is careful to note that ‘many‘ have said there’s no evidence that COVID-19 was engineered, and that concensus is that it came from animals, “that is not the same as saying it didn’t come from a lab, which spent years testing bat coronaviruses in animals,” according to Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at UC Berkeley.
“The cable tells us that there have long been concerns about the possibility of the threat to public health that came from this lab’s research, if it was not being adequately conducted and protected,” he said.
Meanwhile, similar concerns remain about the nearby Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention Lab - a level 2 biosecurity facility, while the Chinese government refuses to say whether either lab was involved.
Notably, the Wuhan CDC is located roughly 900 feet from the wet market which accounted for roughly half of the new COVID-19 cases late last year.
That said, the report notes that the wet market didn’t sell bats - and the first known patient had no known connection to the market. That said, there’s nothing to say that an employee from the Chinese CDC didn’t accidentally infect themselves and go shopping for meat during the virus’s well known asymptomatic incubation period.
According to WaPo, citing sources familiar with the cables, the US embassy wanted to sound an alarm about the grave safety concerns at the WIV lab, “especially regarding its work with bat coronaviruses.”
“The cable was a warning shot,” said one US official. “They were begging people to pay attention to what was going on.”
Next, WaPo moves on to the ‘blame the Trump admin’ phase of the report, noting that “no extra assistance to the labs was provided by the US government in response to the cables” which “began to circulate again inside the administration over the past two months as officials debated whether the lab could be the origin of the pandemic and what the implications would be for the U.S. pandemic response and relations with China.”
Inside the Trump administration, many national security officials have long suspected either the WIV or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab was the source of the novel coronavirus outbreak. According to the New York Times, the intelligence community has provided no evidence to confirm this. But one senior administration official told me that the cables provide one more piece of evidence to support the possibility that the pandemic is the result of a lab accident in Wuhan.
Of note, the Obama administration ‘paused’ funding to the WIV, which was lifted a year into Trump’s presidency according to the National Review.
“The idea that is was just a totally natural occurrence is circumstantial. The evidence it leaked from the lab is circumstantial. Right now, the ledger on the side of it leaking from the lab is packed with bullet points and there’s almost nothing on the other side,” said one WaPo source.
Meanwhile, the CCP has put a complete lockdown on information related to the origins of the virus - refusing to provide US experts with samples collected from the earliest cases, and quickly shutting down the Shanghai lab which published COVID-19’s genome on January 11th for “rectification.”
As WaPo notes, “Several of the doctors and journalists who reported on the spread early on have disappeared.”
On Feb. 14, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a new biosecurity law to be accelerated. On Wednesday, CNN reported the Chinese government has placed severe restrictions requiring approval before any research institution publishes anything on the origin of the novel coronavirus.
And now - considering the source of the report, the bat’s out of the bag and the official narrative has been set - which we were called conspiracy theorists for positing three months ago.
via zerohedge
Pelosi Schumer Schiff n nadler are the worst people I’ve ever seen in politics they should be investigated fully and tosses in federal prison for crimes against society they should be put away for treason they should not be allowed in their political positions they should be removed
Terry it’s your LIE and you can tell it how ever you want. Will the majority agree with you NO. No Democrat or dare I say it no RETARDican is responsible for this virus, but the response from the Trumpzilla administration is abdominal, it’s the worst we’ve ever seen, I’ve never seen a bigger CRY BABY in my life, mommy everybody is picking on me, I’m not responsible at all, you need help you better be nice to me, only I can have total control, fake news, fake virus, it’s another liberal hoax, the federal stock piles are mine not your’s, I’m going to sue, you’re picking on me, you’re being rude to me, but Obama this and Obama that, me me me I I I me me me mine mine mine he’s pathetic.
If I bought a pizzeria and after three years I ran out of flour, tomato sauce, pepperoni and sausage, cardboard boxes, ECT. is it the prior owners fault that I failed to plan ahead?
It’s time for Trumpzilla to stop being a CRY BABY, it’s time for him to man up and own it, he’s over 3 years in it’s his fault for being I’ll prepared, not Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Clinton, or any democrat, all of you and I quote your favorite line,”GET OVER IT, YOU PEOPLE VOTED FOR THIS MORON NOW ITS TIME TO OWN IT”.
Grow up FLUSH. How long have you been a big crybaby?
Of course, our “leaders” were so focused on the Mueller report, followed by the shameful impeachment attempt that they did not manage the ship. The deaths of the CV-19 and the harm this has caused our economy is laid directly at the feet of the Dimocrat Party - especially the leadership. The now will have debilitating health and financial reversals for years - just as they prescribed for millions of innocent taxpayers because they did not like the people’s choice for President.
D— excuse are like assholes everybody has one but yours seems to be huge. And he’s not the people’s choice the electoral college gave us this ORANGE ORRANGATANG MONSTER.
“GET OVER IT ALREADY” if you voted for this idiot you deserve what you voted for, blaming others for his mistakes won’t make the virus go away, but voting this moron infected with the moronavirus out in Nov. will help cure it.
Speaking of a moronavirus I’d say you’re the poster child for you stupid piece of pelosi. That’s short for sh.. you fool.
It’s just a Chinese cut-n-paste propogandist. Best to ignore it. It will explode when Trump is re-elected.
To D Eiland: Frump was so focused on impeachment, he only had time for 3 rallies with his “base” and time for 2 golf trips. The first red flags appeared in Nov. 2019. He had already gotten rid of the teams created by Obama. Wow, big deal, he shut down flights from China, but continued to call it a hoax and tell the public it “would magically disappear”. This is not the fault of the Democrats any more than it is the fault of Retardicans. It is the failure if Leadership!
Oh for crap sakes…they don’t sell the bat to eat at the wet market, this virus came from the freaking bat which is located 800 miles away from the damn wet market…anyone with common sense knows this a bio-weapon because of the nature of it’s transmission…period! And the Wuhan lab is the only place in Wuhan that has the bat!
Uhhm, check videos from China. They do sell bats at the wet markets.
Ron C always try to remember you’re not exactly addressing the smartest people in America on this site, remember who they voted for, that right there is your first clue.
The state department cables were sent about 2 years ago. No one in the [deep] State Department did anything about it. It was assumed to be similar to SARS, which never panned out as the civilization annihilator the prognosticators claimed (any millions of taxpayer dollars wasted on vaccine trials).
During that time; the CIA was heavily involved with the investigations of Trump and plotting his removal, the FBI was implementing the investigations of collusion, Pill-osi and Schiffty and their demons were meeting in backrooms and basements trying to figure out how to bend the law enough to make their impeachment claims against Trump.
When the virus was first known to the public, no one thought much of it; but we now know for certain that China hid their findings, misrepresented their numbers, and disseminated a disinformation campaign the U.S. demon-media lapped up and proliferated.
When the first Wuhan Virus death occurred in Washington, Pill-osi was impeaching the President. The Senate absolved Trump, and the impeachment was voided. Later that month Pill-osi was begging people to come to Chinatown to watch the parade. New York was still attending parties, movies, riding the subway, and going out to eat. New Orleans was observing Marti gras, and Florida was on spring break.
The Wuhan Virus did not pan out as they’d hoped. It so far has been less than a third of what the normal flu does each year; yet our country is shut down, economy crashed, 17 million people out of work.
All the demonrats went undercover, refusing to cooperate with getting things back to normal; holding the country hostage to get their communist socialist agenda carved in stone.
Looks like a conspiracy to me.
The CIA and FBI are indeed capable of concocting multiple contingencies when they plan out their scenarios. Look at their evidence trail all over Europe, and the many conspirators who have been found out so far. That took months, if not years of planning and plotting.
The deep state is real, and they are there to preserve the demon agenda.
Is this an example of the latest “thoughts” from OANN? No one can lay the virus at the feet of either Democrats or Retardicans. Neither party was quick to respond. For better or worse, the majority of Americans expect the President to be on top of things and there is some evidence that this retard was warned about the virus as far back as Nov.
Pelosi “inviting” people to China town is no worse that Frump downplaying it as “another Democrat hoax” and telling the public it would all “go away when the weather gets warmer”.
You need to listen to other channels besides OANN.
Geeze, Victim, what is it about a conspiracy ‘THEORY’ you don’t understand?
OANN is too far right for my tastes, but to each his own . . . If that’s what you like.
The State Department cables are posted for anyone to see if they’re a mind to do so. Form your own opinion.
The rest is simple observation, carved in TV stone and the social media stratosphere.
You people keep forgetting when you post your recorded rants, it goes to more places than the people in your circles and on your lists.
If you have evidence of Trump’s early warnings being ignored, post them. You might sway some wayward swingers . . . Maybe you can increase your numbers in November.
Pill-osi telling people to ignore the virus, three weeks after publicly criticizing the president for worrying about it, is heartless. Especially after what’s happened to her own city. I think she’s an absolutely horrible person. Holding her own constituency hostage during the CARES act ‘debates’ was the dumbest thing she’s ever done, and I hope she lost her career over it. I think she miscalculated.
Trump never called the Wuhan Virus a hoax. The demons know that. He said “the fake news” was trying to start another scandal over it “which is another hoax”. You’re just stubbornly repeating what you hope, because you want and need to justify your hateful hearts.
Repeating the twisted words of hateful media without verifying proves your limited intellect. His speech WAS recorded . . .
I thought you demons worshiped science. Viruses DO go away when the weather warms up. (Of course the demons do believe babies aren’t real until they can be seen with the naked eye.)
Gerry so what you’re saying is that it’s everybody else that should be doing trumpzilla’s job. Maybe if he wasn’t more concerned with firring everybody or playing gulf or holding his hate rallies he could have been on top of it.
But NO now you’re here blaming anybody and everybody for not doing trumpzilla’s job. There’s nobody including all his communist comrades that stated in 2015 that if he got the nomination America was finished. That’s the beauty of Google you can research anything anytime anywhere not one single RETARDican had anything good to say about your supreme leader, he mocked them, he called everybody names, the coward of all cowards called McCain a loser, absolutely no respect for anybody ever, he’s a perverted pedophile, serial rapist, proven racist, tax cheat, draft dodging coward cadet bone spurs, womanizer, child molester with his beauty pageant, cheated on his wife with Stormy Daniels to the extent he paid her off, he’s an embarrassment to America around the world, no empathy for human life, no morals, no christian beliefs, no respect, not one comforting word to any one suffering or who has died from this virus, everyday it’s me me me I I I mine mine mine, he’s a POS, he’s a disgrace to America, he’s not human, he’s like a rabbid animal, he’s mentally unfit, he’s physically unfit, he’s the most disgusting THING to ever sit in our white house, everybody hates him and I mean everybody, only people that like him are too retarded and stupid to know any better and his supporters hate America even more then he does, I don’t know what kind of animals you THINGS are but your all not humans that’s for sure, you need to go back to what ever planet you THINGS come from.
WaPo again casting blame when the whole story is not yet out. Shoot first - ask questions later - just “awesome” reporting - but what do expect from a paper that has an agenda.
Flush the turd, is actually the turd that needs to be Flushed down to toilet.