As a World health Organization (WHO) panel of experts is conducting research in Wuhan, the Wuhan Institute for Virus Research has become the focus of attention again as to whether it is linked to the origin of the new coronavirus. Matt Pottinger, the recently departed White House deputy national security adviser, cited a U.S. government report questioning whether the Wuhan Virus Institute not only has close ties to China’s People’s Liberation Army, but also that as early as November 2019, people within the institute were infected with influenza-like illnesses. However, an expert who is conducting research there has a different view.
Bo Ming, the “chief architect of the Cold War against China” and now a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution, spoke at a Feb. 3 web event hosted by The Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs at Florida International University. Public Affairs at a networking event hosted by the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs at Florida International University on Feb. 3, he still hasn’t shifted his focus from China after leaving the White House. Speaking about the outbreak, he focused on the connection between the origin of the new coronavirus and the Wuhan Virus Institute.
“We had published a list of facts that within the Wuhan Institute of Virus, there was a flu-like illness in November 2019; also, there was new information about the role that the Chinese military played at the Wuhan Institute of Virus, which had never been disclosed before.” He said.
The list Bomen refers to is a fact sheet titled “Activities of the Wuhan Virus Institute” released by the State Department on Jan. 15 before former President Donald Trump‘s administration left office, a report that is still available online.
While the document begins by acknowledging that the U.S. government does not know exactly when, where or how the new coronavirus was initially transmitted to humans, and has not confirmed that the outbreak was due to exposure to infected animals or an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan, China, the statement criticizes the Chinese Communist Party‘s obsession with secrecy and control of information at the expense of public health security in China and even around the world.
WHO panel says China is open and honest, refutes ‘archaeological show’ questions
Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO panel and president of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, has a close working relationship with Wuhan Virus Institute, having funded its research on bat coronaviruses. (Reuters)
A group of WHO experts conducting research in Wuhan has visited the Institute and met with Wuhan Virus researcher Shi Zhengli, known as the “Batgirl. Peter Daszak, president of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, who is a member of the panel, said on his Twitter account that he had a very important meeting with Wuhan Virus Institute staff, including Shi Zhengli, on Feb. 3, during which there was a “frank and open” discussion, with questions and answers on a number of key issues. There were questions and answers.
He told Reuters that there was no evidence that the virus came from the lab, but gave no further reason. He added that the virus may have been spreading long before it appeared in Wuhan. He said the panel is now working from tracing patient zero to why the animal host of the virus. Because of the complexity of tracing the virus back to its source, it could take months, or even years, to find out the answer.
As of press Time, Dasak did not respond to our email queries.
There have been questions that the WHO team was only able to investigate Wuhan a year after the outbreak with the permission of Chinese officials and without free access to the local population, making it an “archaeological show” and difficult to learn the truth. In response to these questions, Dasak’s response to an interview with the Associated Press was, “We observed ourselves in the seafood market and asked questions to the market managers and vendors, and we submitted questions to them in advance of our visit, all in sensitive areas, and we didn’t just take a big bus over there and wander around and take a few pictures and that was it.”
Controversy 1: Wuhan Virus Institute had people infected by the end of 2019?
Regarding Patient Zero, the official U.S. government documents mentioned by Booming state that the U.S. government has reason to believe that a number of researchers within the Wuhan Institute of Virus developed a disease similar to New Crown Pneumonia or influenza as early as the fall of 2019, which predates the first confirmed cases.
Challenging the claim that the Wuhan Institute of Virus had an earlier infection within the institute is not the same as Shi Zhengli’s claim. Shi Zhengli has repeatedly stated that there were zero infections among institute employees and students during the outbreak.
Controversy 2: Wuhan Virus Institute and the PLA are linked?
Official U.S. documents question that although the Wuhan Institute for Virus Research calls itself a civilian institution, the United States has determined that the Institute for Virus and the Chinese military have collaborated on publications and secret projects. Since 2017, the Wuhan Institute of Virus has been conducting classified research on behalf of the Chinese military, including laboratory animal experiments.
And our correspondent searched for a public document online in China showing that the Wuhan Virus Institute and the PLA have collaborated even earlier, dating back to 2015.
Wuhan Institute of Virus official online public information shows that in 2015, Wuhan Institute of Virus researcher Wang Hanzhong, in close cooperation with the People’s Liberation Army 302 Hospital, the PLA Academy of Military Medical Sciences Institute of Microbial Epidemiology of the relevant scientific research team, completed the “respiratory, intestinal emerging viral infectious disease pathogens and prevention and control technology research” project The project was awarded the first prize of medical achievements of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
According to the file, Wang Hanzhong is the head of the zoonotic virus disease group at Wuhan Institute of Virus. However, his name is no longer available in the “Talent Team” section of the Wuhan Institute of Virus official website.
Wang Hanzhong, a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, worked with the research team of the PLA 302 Hospital and the Institute of Microbial Epidemiology of the PLA Academy of Military Medical Sciences to complete the project “Research on the pathogens and prevention and control technologies of emerging viral infectious diseases of the respiratory and intestinal tracts” in 2015, which won the first prize for medical achievements of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The picture shows the award certificate with the seal of the General Logistics Department of the PLA. (Wuhan Institute of Virus, Chinese Academy of Sciences official website)
Controversy 3: Wuhan virus all accidental leak virus possibility?
Although members of the WHO panel pointed out that there is no evidence that the virus came from the laboratory, not only were there concerns within U.S. officials as early as 2018, but Shi Zhengli also had self-doubts at the beginning of the outbreak.
In an interview with the monthly Scientific American last February, Shi Zhengli revealed that when she was called back to Wuhan in a hurry on Dec. 30, 2019, her first thought was, “Could the virus have come out of our lab?” Shi Zhengli, who was in Shanghai for a meeting at the time, received an urgent call from the institute’s leadership and immediately took a train back to Wuhan. At that time, two patients suspected of “atypical pneumonia” virus samples have been sent to the Institute of Virus, she wondered uneasily on the way, “Is the Hubei Health Bureau wrong? Did they come from our lab?”
It was also reported at the time that she had trouble sleeping every night during the initial outbreak. On the one hand, their research team repeatedly tested the virus samples sent in from patients and created a genetic sequence of the virus to compare with the thousands of coronavirus samples obtained from more than 15,000 bats over more than a decade in the lab; on the other hand, she had to go through the lab records of the past few years to check the experimental materials, especially in the waste disposal process, for any oversight.
“None of the (patients’) viral sequences matched the bat coronavirus sequences collected by our team.” She said at the time, as if relieved.
The Washington Post last year cited internal U.S. diplomatic cables revealing that U.S. diplomats who had visited Wuhan’s P4 lab had reported to the State Department back in 2018 that the Wuhan Virus Institute’s P4 lab was “inadequately trained and a security risk of mismanagement.”
WHO Expert Group Research Too Late?
Countries from around the world have been asking to visit the Wuhan Institute since the beginning of the outbreak last year, but it was not until early this year that the visit came true.
The Council on Foreign Relations in the U.S. recently hosted an online seminar to explore the lessons global public health should learn from the year 2020. Without naming China, Christopher Murray, a professor of public health at Washington State University, said during the session, “It’s been a year since the outbreak. To talk about the right direction for us going forward, I would say to give everyone access to the data that they basically deserve ……. Many governments around the world are still trying, as if by instinct, to dominate the public’s right to know and dominate the discourse. Some countries are even trying to give less data, not more. That doesn’t help.”
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