"Batwoman" in China: Searching for the Precise COVID-19 Release Scenario

 

COVID-19 Originated in Wuhan China Lab

(Released how remains #1 conundrum)

Background on the # 1 worldwide issue: That issue is now flying all over rightwing media as to whether the NIH funded research on bat coronaviruses that could have caused a pathogen to become more infectious to humans and, separately labeled the SARS-CoV-2 — causing the CoVID-19 disease either: (1) transferred naturally from bats to humans, (2) possibly through an intermediate host animal to humans, (3) even a naturally occurring one, or lab-enhanced one, (4) that could have been accidentally (or on purpose) released from the Wuhan lab.

Specific details:

In 2014, the NIH awarded a $3.7 million grant to the U.S. based EcoHealth Alliance spread over a six-year period of which about $600,000 of that total went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, a collaborator, and one that was pre-approved by NIH to study the risk of the future emergence of coronaviruses from bats.

In 2019, the project was renewed for another five years, but it was canceled in April 2020 (by Trump) — three months after the first case of the coronavirus was confirmed in the U.S and after Trump and others questioned the funding to the Wuhan lab, while also exaggerating the amount of federal money (stated above) that was actually involved. 

(Note: The $600,000 was spread over 6 years – thus is really not that much).

The Wuhan Institute has studied bat coronaviruses for years regarding their potential to infect humans (Zoonotic diseases) under the supervision of scientist Dr. Shi Zhengli (whom colleagues and media called her “Batwoman” because of her virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves for over the past 16 years). 

She explains the SARS-CoV-2, known as CoVID-19 in the Scientific  American Journal, June 1, 2020 edition.

Such zoonotic transfer (e.g., animal to human) the coronaviruses occurred with the SARS and MERS coronaviruses, which led to global outbreaks in 2003 and 2012. Both are thought to have started in bats, and then transferred into humans through intermediate animals — e.g., civets and raccoon dogs, in the case of SARS, and camels for MERS.

Experts have suspected the SARS-CoV-2 virus similarly originated in bats. 

Researchers in China — including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab — have said the virus shares 96% of its genome with a bat virus collected  by researchers in 2013 in Yunnan Province, China.

While that’s quite similar, Dr. Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa who studies coronaviruses and a pediatric infectious disease physician, said it would be “impossible to take such a virus and make the kind of changes required to turn it into SARS-CoV-2 in a lab,” while concluding: “One would need a virus that’s 99.9% similar, and in theory it might work.”

COVID-19 “has no credible natural ancestor” – it was created by Chinese scientists who then tried to cover their tracks with “retro-reengineering” to make it seem like it naturally arose from bats (a new study claims).

So far we've been told that the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (CoVID-19), is definitely not a biologically engineered pathogen, and it was not released on purpose. 

It is likely to have been the result of accidental transmission through human contact with wild animals, like almost all disease outbreaks in history have been.

But the emerging reports about the lab in Wuhan are making many people aware for the first time that **gain-of-functionresearch (while bashing Dr. Fauci) indeed happens at all.

The government gives grants to researchers to make potentially pandemic viruses deadlier and to make them transmissible more easily between people, but why do that? Simple: To have preventions developed and on hand if that kind of outbreak occurs.

*Gain-of-function research can highlight possible mutations that may take place in currently known viruses that allows better medical surveillance, better identifying of virus when mutations arise, and to allow vaccines to be prepared in advance for such an outbreak.

There is nothing nefarious or illegal about in this case despite GOP persistence otherwise (cite: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) grilling Dr. Fauci recently as if it were some nefarious plot between Fauci and the Wuhan lab staff).

Critically important note: Mutations a virus may acquire naturally are widely varied, and they are not guaranteed to present in the same way as those developed by serial passages in a laboratory.

Similarly, the cost and time associated with vaccine development and storage means that preparatory stockpiling of vaccines is also unlikely to become a real benefit of *gain-of-function research.

Note: That kind of highly controversial research was banned under Obama after safety incidents demonstrated that lab containment is rarely airtight, but it began again under Trump. Note that Republicans to date have not mentioned that part. We wonder why not?

Many scientists and public health researchers think it’s a really bad idea. This brush with the horrors of CoVID-19 might force the world to reconsider the warnings those experts have been sounding for years and simply shut off that kind of research funding now.

My 2 cents: The short answer is that we (the world) does not know precisely how the COVID-19 disease come into reality. 

Everything above proves that point about the 4 possible scenarios. However, time will tell and the truth will come out - it always does. Or, we may already know. 

I don’t think there is anything nefarious here except in conspiracy-laden GOP la-la land and that is mostly thanks to and driven by one Donald J. Trump – a fact that is not disputed.

My related post on the original three possible scenarios (now has grown to four and cited above). 

Thanks for stopping by.