This thread from Jim Geraghty on the evidence that COVID-19 likely came from either the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and not the Huanan Seafood Market is lengthy but absolutely worth your time.
Some fascinating and disconcerting things here:
The evidence that COVID-19 came from either the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and NOT the Huanan Seafood Market is circumstantial. But is a growing stack of circumstantial evidence.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
The Wuhan Institute of Virology in China posted a job opening on November 18, 2019, for a project studying Ebola and SARS-associated coronavirus in bats.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Keep going …
On December 24, 2019, the Wuhan Institute of Virology posted a second job posting, declaring, “a large number of new bat and rodent new viruses have been discovered and identified.”https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Gosh, that’s coincidental. Hrm.
On Feb. 17 Radio France Internationale reported, “when a reporter from the Beijing News of the Mainland asked the institute for rumors about patient zero, the institute first denied that there was a researcher Huang Yanling…"
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Patient Zero.
Holy crap.
"… but after learning that the name of the person on the Internet did exist, acknowledged that the person had worked at the firm but has now left the office and is unaccounted for.”https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Unaccounted for.
Nothing to see here folks …
The Wuhan Institute of Virology does indeed still have “Huang Yanling” listed as a 2012 graduate student, but her picture and biography appear to have been recently removed — along with two other graduate students from 2013, Wang Mengyue and Wei Cuihua.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW pic.twitter.com/63osl5MHhJ
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Recently removed.
How strange.
Several officials at the Wuhan Institute of Virology issued public statements that Huang was in good health and that no one at the institute has been infected with COVID-19.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Of course, they did.
Then there is the withdrawn research paper of Dr. Botao Xiao, who was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. his biography is still on the web site of the South China University of Technology.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW pic.twitter.com/xXhE82T4d2
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
The first conclusion of Botao Xiao’s paper is that the bats suspected of carrying the virus are extremely unlikely to be found naturally in the city, and despite the stories of “bat soup,” they conclude that bats were not sold at the market. https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW pic.twitter.com/NmQ0jMdkVU
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Color us shocked!
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization could not confirm if bats were present at the market. https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
WHO.
Don’t get us started.
Dr. Botao Xiao’s paper theorizes that the coronavirus originated from bats being used for research at either one of two research laboratories in Wuhan.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW pic.twitter.com/bXlZ0fvoVZ
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
So they weren’t eating them?! BUT WE WERE TOLD THEY WERE!
However, Xiao told the Wall Street Journal that he has withdrawn his paper. “The speculation about the possible origins in the post was based on published papers and media, and was not supported by direct proofs,” he said in a brief email on February 26.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
And he withdrew his paper.
Because of course, he did.
Of course, we can’t rule out the possibility that the Chinese government forced Dr. Botao Xiao to withdraw his paper.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Nope.
In 2004, the World Health Organization determined an outbreak of SARS had been caused by two separate leaks at the Chinese Institute of Virology in Beijing. The Chinese government blamed “negligence” and the officials had been punished.
https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
The bat researcher that Xiao’s report refers to is virologist Tian Junhua, who works at the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control. In 2017, the Chinese state-owned Shanghai Media Group made a seven-minute documentary about him, showing him… collecting bats.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW pic.twitter.com/xZ4aoKYAeh
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Bat urine and blood can carry viruses. How likely is it that bat urine or blood got onto a researcher at either Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention or the Wuhan Institute of Virology?https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntWhttps://t.co/9Ei483sJ1A pic.twitter.com/7aYqDpe1Z7
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Alternatively, what are the odds that some sort of medical waste or other material from the bats was not properly disposed of, and that was the initial transmission vector to a human being?https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW pic.twitter.com/Lp9sWQbbZh
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
This is terrifying.
Sorry, not sorry.
You will notice that this article includes no quotes from unnamed officials. It is not a “conspiracy theory.” Everything is based upon public statements on web sites that are, for now, still online.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW pic.twitter.com/gEp4vApfQc
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
For now.
At no point does this article speculate or posit that that COVID-19 was bioengineered, deliberately created, or deliberately released from either lab. https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
But it would be a remarkable coincidence that not one but TWO major laboratories in Wuhan were researching Ebola and SARS-associated coronaviruses in bats before the pandemic outbreak and then an entirely separate vector brought COVID-19 to the city.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Remarkable indeed.
The Chinese explanation now is that a bat with COVID-19, far from its natural habitat, got into the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market and was ingested, entirely separately from the two labs in the city that were researching coronaviruses in bats.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
Uh-huh.
The fact that the Chinese government spent six weeks insisting that COVID-19 could not be spread from person to person means that its denials about Wuhan laboratories cannot be accepted without independent verification.https://t.co/OrZ2FXpntW
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 3, 2020
And WHO covered for them.
Something strange is afoot at the Circle K, folks.
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