NR’s Jim Geraghty has a new article out today summarized by this must-read (and comprehensive) thread on “everything we know” so far on the theory that COVID-19 originated from a leak out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.
THREAD (25 tweets in total) ==>
The first step on the road to the COVID-19 pandemic may have come in April 2012, when six miners were assigned to clean bat guano from a copper mineshaft in Tongguan, Mojiang, Yunnan Province, China. https://t.co/pu0RhPibTV
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
I think a lot of people don’t grasp how big China is, and how far this copper mine is from Wuhan. This copper mine is closer to the borders of Laos and Vietnam than it is to Wuhan.https://t.co/pu0RhPibTV pic.twitter.com/X1f7hyKVSg
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
All six miners grew ill with a cough and fever, difficulty breathing, aching limbs, heavy and bloody mucus and saliva, and headaches — symptoms of a viral respiratory infection that is similar to the effects of COVID-19. Three died.https://t.co/pu0RhPibTV
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
Recognizing that the virus afflicting the miners could be comparable to SARS, blood samples from the miners were sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for antibody testing.https://t.co/pu0RhPibTV
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
In 2012 and 2013, teams of researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology conducted a study of coronaviruses in bats in that abandoned mineshaft.https://t.co/pu0RhPibTV pic.twitter.com/tOgPDcOX3j
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
WIV: "We found a high frequency of infection by a diverse group of coronaviruses in different bat species in the mineshaft… Surveillance identified two unclassified betacoronaviruses, one new strain of SARS-like coronavirus, and one potentially new betacoronavirus species."
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
"Furthermore, coronavirus co-infection was detected in all six bat species, a phenomenon that fosters recombination and promotes the emergence of novel virus strains.”https://t.co/pu0RhPibTV
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
(This is all from scientific papers published by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, long before the COVID-19 pandemic started.)https://t.co/pu0RhPibTV
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
The Wuhan Institute of Virology collected a lot of virus samples from the bats in this mineshaft. And the institute did a lot of additional research on coronaviruses found in bats, year after year, and discovered many new bat viruses.https://t.co/pu0RhPibTV
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
12/24/19, Wuhan Institute of Virology posted a job listing that declared, translated, “Long-term research on the pathogenic biology of bats carrying important viruses has confirmed the origin of bats of major new human and livestock infectious disease…”https://t.co/pu0RhPibTV
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
“…such as SARS and SADS, and a large number of new bat and rodent new viruses have been discovered and identified.” https://t.co/pu0RhPibTV
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
This is the same lab that two U.S. experts visited in 2018 and concluded "has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory.”https://t.co/pu0RhPibTV pic.twitter.com/Z2GH9Wt7J9
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
The State Department memo also noted that the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s research into the viruses in bats in Yunnan Province was funded, at least in a small part, by U.S. taxpayers.https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt pic.twitter.com/wVTs1XA2oe
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
In February 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, a team of researchers from WIV concluded that SARS-CoV-2 was “highly similar throughout the genome to RaTG13” — the virus found in the mineshaft — “with an overall genome sequence identity of 96.2%.”https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
So the question is, how did a virus most similar to the ones found in bats in a mineshaft in the southern corner of China get to Wuhan?https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt pic.twitter.com/of7OTlTWIy
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
No outbreaks of COVID-19 were found between Yunnan Province and Wuhan before the outbreak in the city of Wuhan in December 2019. According to Chinese health officials, the first COVID-19 patient in Yunnan Province was diagnosed on January 21, 2020.https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt pic.twitter.com/OuxmDK8PLu
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
Wuhan is about 1,140 miles away from the mineshaft, a 21-hour drive, roughly the distance from New Orleans to New York City. Wuhan is well beyond the natural habitat and migration patterns of bats who are most likely to carry viruses such as this one.https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt pic.twitter.com/fZO6eKFpAi
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
Animal smugglers? Sure, theoretically. But we still haven’t found evidence of that scenario. In early 2020, Chinese researchers also took samples from 188 animals from 18 species at the market, all of which tested negative.https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
The joint WHO-Chinese preliminary investigation, completed in February 2021 concluded, “Through extensive testing of animal products in the Huanan market, no evidence of animal infections was found.”https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
We are left with the mystery of a virus that is spectacularly contagious among human beings and that is genetically similar to viruses found in bats and pangolins, but that is nowhere to be found in bats and pangolins.https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
Georgetown University professor and pandemic specialist George Lucey concludes that the focus on the Huanan Seafood Market as the pandemic origin point is simply misplaced. “The virus came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace.”https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
BTW, I have no idea what to make of that May 2020 NBC News report that “Private analysis of cellphone location data purports to show that a high-security Wuhan laboratory studying coronaviruses shut down in October.”https://t.co/WObsHix2bT
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
You know what’s really weird? Since that report, there has been no subsequent elaboration, no further details, no ensuing leaks of new information of what, if anything, happened in that laboratory building in that autumn.https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt pic.twitter.com/sVQFic5e41
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
So maybe that cell-phone data is wrong. Or maybe it’s nothing related – just the bosses telling staff to stay off their cell phones at work. Or… maybe something went really, really wrong within the walls of the WIV in autumn of 2019.https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
Anyway, this thread is long enough. Click through and read the whole thing. There’s more in there about China’s interest in the military applications of biological research.https://t.co/pu0RhPzMLt
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 27, 2021
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