Investigations into the origin of COVID-19
There should be a slight correction as to the "most scientists believe" line. It should read "most published scientists believe," since dissenting scientists do not get published in science journals.
Very strong pressures are exerted upon scientific journals to block publication by dissidents. The definition of science depends on the nationality of the scientist, since the beliefs allowed to publishing scientists are usually controlled by what the editorials of the local newspaper of record says.
In the US, The New York Times and The Washington Post are newspapers of record. It just so happen that they reflect the views of the leadership of the Democratic Party. It just so happens that the daily papers of every country in the West follow the inspiration of US newspapers of record.
Men and women of science are also subject to propaganda, and do accept as true what is seen as appropriate by the regime, in authoritarian, dictatorial, or democratic countries.
In 2020, at first, President Trump rejected the laboratory escape solution, and accepted the position of the WHO: the virus jumped from bat to human, possibly through an intermediate host. Then, when it seemed useful, President Trump changed his mind, and came to be sure that Covid-19 had come from Wuhan.
One year later, in May 2021, Time apologizes to its faithful readers for having dissed the Wuhan "Trump conspiracy theory."
The spillover event introducing SARS-CoV-2 to humans is likely to have occurred in late 2019.[17][18]
Date of spillover event as of late 2019 is incorrect, since the virus was present in Italy before that time.
There had been a report of the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing covid in frozen sewage water samples from Barcelona in March 2019. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.20129627v1. That, however, is likely to have been a contamination issue, since whatever semblance of virus traces was there in March, it disappeared in April.
Much more significant, however, is a cancer long term observational study that took blood samples in different Italian regions. Checking said samples for Covid-19, RBD antibodies were found starting on September 3.
Table 1 reports anti-SARS-CoV-2 RBD antibody detection according to the time of sample collection in Italy. In the first 2 months, September–October 2019, 23/162 (14.2%) patients in September and 27/166 (16.3%) in October displayed IgG or IgM antibodies, or both. The first positive sample (IgM-positive) was recorded on September 3 in the Veneto region, followed by a case in Emilia Romagna (September 4), a case in Liguria (September 5), two cases in Lombardy (Milano Province; September 9), and one in Lazio (Roma; September 11). By the end of September, 13 of the 23 (56.5%) positive samples were recorded in Lombardy, three in Veneto, two in Piedmont, and one each in Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Lazio, Campania, and Friuli. A similar time distribution was observed when considering Lombardy alone https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0300891620974755
There is also a study organised by Dr. Pasquale Bacco, according to which, the antibodies found in the blood of thousands of Italians showed that the virus was present in October 2019. Ai sensi dei Decreti Legislativi 626/94, 242/96, 359/99, 66/200 - meleam-s.p.a.-studio-covid19-25-febbraio-al-24-aprile-1-2.pdf
https://www.bresciatoday.it/attualita/coronavirus/brescia-test-sierologici-pasquale-mario-bacco.html
World Health Organization
In May 2020, the World Health Assembly, which governs the World Health Organization (WHO), passed a motion calling for a "comprehensive, independent and impartial" investigation into the COVID-19 pandemic. A record 137 countries, including China, co-sponsored the motion, giving overwhelming international endorsement to the investigation.[112] In mid 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) began negotiations with the government of China on conducting an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
Findings
In March 2021, the WHO published the written report with the results of the joint study.[1] The joint team stated that there are four scenarios for introduction:
- a. direct zoonotic transmission to humans (spillover), assessed as "possible to likely"
- b. introduction through an intermediate host followed by a spillover, assessed as "likely to very likely"
- c. introduction through the (cold) food chain, assessed as "possible"
The four offered alternatives show that the investigation was not seriously done.
a. No motive for such assessment, since the animals with SARS-CoV-2 were not found.
b. No motive for such assessment, since the animals with SARS-CoV-2 were not found
c. In Qingdao, a port, in October 2020, there were 12 cases, including two dock workers, who probably contracted Covid-19 from sailors on foreign ships. But some ignorant bureaucrat got the brilliant idea that some Norwegian might have sneezed on frozen fish and that covid might have arrived with the fish.
Since, in China, they do not stick frozen fish up their nose, the idea of fish transmission goes against Occam's Razor: that principle bans twisted complicated solutions until the time when simpler solutions are no longer available.
d. introduction through a laboratory incident, assessed as "extremely unlikely".
d. Alternative d. is assessed "extremely unlikely," on the basis of incorrect assumptions.
Laboratory incidents are not uncommon, and sloppy laboratory management had been observerved, in Wuhan as in Fort Detrick, the US laboratory closed down in 2019 for sloppy practices.
Alternative D is thus the most likely, although the laboratory involved is unknown.
On 23 May 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that a previously undisclosed US intelligence report stated that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill enough in November 2019 to seek hospital care. The report did not specify what the illness was. Officials familiar with the intelligence differed as to the strength to which it corroborates the hypothesis that the virus responsible for COVID-19 was leaked from the WIV. The WSJ report notes that it is not unusual for people in China to go to the hospital with uncomplicated influenza or common cold symptoms.[108]
Yuan Zhiming, director of the WIV's Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, responded in the Global Times that "Those claims are groundless. The lab has not been aware of this situation [sick researchers in autumn 2019], and I don't even know where such information came from."[109][110] WIV virologist Shi Zhengli said in 2020 that all staff tested negative for COVID-19 antibodies.[108]
The cancer long term observational study showing the presence of covid-19 antibodies in Italians in early September 2019, requires presence of the illness in August 2019.
Report was published. in November 2020; it would appear that it conflicted with some important concerns or interests. So it was ignored.
The resurgence of the theory of a laboratory accident was fueled in part by the publication, in May 2021, of early emails between Anthony Fauci and scientists discussing the issue, before deliberate manipulation was ruled out after deeper analysis.[111]
So a bunch of scientists take a look at a virus and they all agree: it looks artificial.
Then they change their mind.
Was it "deeper analysis" that persuades them to see errors? Or was it fear of consequences?
The divisive nature of the debate has led scientists to call for less political pressure on the topic.[111] Public health analysts have remarked that the debate over the origins of SARS-CoV-2 is fueling unnecessary confrontation, and is deepening existing geopolitical tensions and hindering collaboration at a time where such mutual cooperation is required, both to deal with the current pandemic and in preparation for future such outbreaks.[49][144] This comes in the face of scientists having predicted such events for decades: according to Katie Woolaston, researcher at the Queensland University of Technology, "The environmental drivers of pandemics are not being widely discussed".
In view of the above-mentioned Italian findings, we cannot deny that Covid-19 may have originated in a laboratory in the West, and may have arrived in Wuhan on a direct flight from Milano.
Which of the two following scenarios must be excluded because it could never have happened?
a. A Chinese scientist in Wuhan made a little mistake at the lab and had a slight cold he passed to his girlfriend, who had dinner with her cousin who went to Italy in July 2019.
b. A British scientist working at Porton Down made a mistake at the lab and had a slight cold when he flew to Milano for a lovely weekend with Lina, just before she flew to Wuhan. Lina also had a slight cold, and she sneezed on the plane--and at the Wuhan Wet Market.
COVID-19 pandemic
In 2020, Montagnier argued that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was man-made in a laboratory and that it might have been the result of an attempt to create a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. His allegation came after the United States had launched a probe into whether the virus came from a laboratory. According to Montagnier, the "presence of elements of HIV and germ of malaria in the genome of coronavirus is highly suspect and the characteristics of the virus could not have arisen naturally."[53] Montagnier's conclusions were rejected as hasty by the scientific community, considering the gene sequences are common among similar organisms.[10] There is currently no evidence indicating the novel coronavirus is a man-made virus.[8][54]
There is more evidence for the virus being man-made than for the virus having come from nature.
We have found no wild animal with the virus.
Quite a few laboratories have done research on coronaviruses. Moreover, any competent biologist could have been carrying out personal research.