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I chose a less clear title to avoid another possible censorship blunder from Facebook Community Standards.
Washington Post: By Josh Rogin Columnist covering foreign policy and national security April 14, 2020, at 3:00 a.m. PDT
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Global Opinions
State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses
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Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge.
I acknowledge that coronavirus (es) is (are) found in nature...
COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin: March 17, 2020: Scripps Research Institute
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Possible origins of the virus
Based on their genomic sequencing analysis, Andersen and his collaborators concluded that the most likely origins for SARS-CoV-2 followed one of two possible scenarios.
In one scenario, the virus evolved to its current pathogenic (capable of causing disease, my add) state through natural selection in a non-human host and then jumped to humans.
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In the other proposed scenario, a non-pathogenic (not capable of causing diseases, my add) version of the virus jumped from an animal host into humans and then evolved to its current pathogenic state within the human population.
Back to the Washington Post article...
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In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4). WIV issued a news release in English about the last of these visits, which occurred on March 27, 2018. The U.S. delegation was led by Jamison Fouss, the consul general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy’s counselor of environment, science, technology and health. Last week, WIV erased that statement from its website, though it remains archived on the Internet.
'Last week, WIV erased that statement from its website, though it remains archived on the Internet.'
Why was this key visit from the US Embassy, science diplomats and the related statement erased by WIV?
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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.
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'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,” states the Jan. 19, 2018, cable...'
There was a lack of trained technicians and investigators...
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As many have pointed out, there is no evidence that the virus now plaguing the world was engineered; scientists largely agree it came from animals. But that is not the same as saying it didn’t come from the lab, which spent years testing bat coronaviruses in animals, said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley.
I accept as presently reasonable and probable, there is no significant evidence that COVID-19 was engineered in some way by Chinese scientists, as the scientific consensus is that it came from animals within nature.
A level of scientific engineering of COVID-19, as China is a Communist country, in competition with western democratic nations, especially economically, is not beyond a reasonable possibility.
To be clear, this is opposed to a reasonable probability.
I will side with scientists that state, based on present evidence, that COVID-19, being within nature and animals, was not a specifically, designed virus and weapon of sorts to disrupt the world economy; and western economies. With a significant number of deaths being part of the plan.
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There are similar concerns about the nearby Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab, which operates at biosecurity level 2, a level significantly less secure than the level-4 standard claimed by the Wuhan Insititute of Virology lab, Xiao said. That’s important because the Chinese government still refuses to answer basic questions about the origin of the novel coronavirus while suppressing any attempts to examine whether either lab was involved.
Granted, China is a totalitarian country under Communism, with heavy government use of propaganda, but the lack of transparency is a red flag. Why cannot the truth be told?
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As my colleague David Ignatius noted, the Chinese government’s original story — that the virus emerged from a seafood market in Wuhan — is shaky. Research by Chinese experts published in the Lancet in January showed the first known patient, identified on Dec. 1, had no connection to the market, nor did more than one-third of the cases in the first large cluster. Also, the market didn’t sell bats.
A shaky origins story. The true origins of the virus would, it appears, may make China publicly look bad, regardless of the actual truth. Possibly, being scientifically incompetent in regards to their research of COVID-19 in the Wuhan lab under review.
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The Chinese government, meanwhile, has put a total lockdown on information related to the virus origins. Beijing has yet to provide U.S. experts with samples of the novel coronavirus collected from the earliest cases. The Shanghai lab that published the novel coronavirus genome on Jan. 11 was quickly shut down by authorities for “rectification.” Several of the doctors and journalists who reported on the spread early on have disappeared.
Doctors and journalists that have disappeared. What truth is so sensitive to this dictatorship to resort to such extreme measures?
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