WHITNEY WEBB ON CONVID-19

[David Guyatt]

Source: http://archive.is/F04r7

Continuing (it's a long article)

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)][color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Such an expansive personal history of expertise into coronaviruses is not only impressive, but unique, and the bulk of her 30-year career at Wuhan Institute Virology seems to have been dedicated primarily to the examination and exploration of all facets of interspecies (though primarily bat) pathogenic infection of coronaviruses into human host cells. For reference, you can check Appendix A for the sum total of all her published (or otherwise unclassified or declassified) studies at the end of this essay. Prof. Zhengli’s absolute mastery of bat-to-human transmission of viruses via their spike protein binding with human cell receptors is virtually conclusive and unrivalled.
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)][b]Unanswered Questions About the Coronavirus 2019-nCoV Outbreak in Wuhan[/b][/color]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]In Prof. Zhengli’s March 2019 study, [i]Bat Coronaviruses in China[/i], she proves seemingly prophetic, writing that it was “highly likely that future SARS- or MERS-like coronavirus outbreaks will originate from bats, and there is an increased probability that this will occur in China. Therefore, the investigation of bat coronaviruses becomes an urgent issue for the detection of early warning signs, which in turn minimizes the impact of such future outbreaks in China.” Just nine months later, 2019-nCoV rears its viral head, less than 10 miles from her labatory: [i]how did Prof. Zhengli know?[/i][/color]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)][i]The Sun[/i] cited a [i]Nature.com[/i] report voicing warnings given back in 2017 “that a deadly SARS-like virus could escape from lab [sic] in Wuhan set up to study some of the world’s deadliest diseases.” The worries surrounding Wuhan’s laboratory surfaced almost an entire year before the Chinese government announced its official commencement of operation in January, 2018. And likely with good cause, as the “SARS virus [had] escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey.” However, the article in [i]The Sun[/i] exaggerates the distance from Wuhan’s National Biosafety Laboratory to Huanan Market, erroneously claiming that it’s 20 miles away, instead of 8.6 miles, and also states that Dr. Ebright reportedly said “at this point there’s no reason to harbor suspicious that the facility had anything to do with the outbreak.” [i]Seriously? Does Dr. Ebright believe in coincidences?[/i][/color]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Another new article from [i]The Sun[/i] published January 23, 2020, reports a “new study was carried out jointly by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the People’s Liberation Army and Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, revealing that the coronavirus has a strong binding affinity to a human protein called ACE2.” But Zhengli and her team mates have been aware of the susceptibility of ACE2 to SARS and coronavirus infection for at least the last ten years, publishing their studies with the US National Library of Medicine and with other prominent industry repositories.[/color]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]So we are left with the following pressing, unanswered questions about Prof. Zhengli, the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, and the Coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak in Wuhan:[/color][/color]
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1. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Why are the Chinese authorities seemingly ignoring the Wuhan Institute Virology’s contemporaneous coronavirus study (culminating in a Dec. 11, 2019 report, published[i] the day before[/i] the outbreak) conducted at the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, located just 8.6 miles distant from the claimed epicenter of pandemic origin, Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market? [i]Why is the media not reporting this?[/i][/color]
   
   
   
2. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Why are most media reports covering the coronavirus still misreporting the source of the virus’ genome sequence as snakes instead of bats?[/color]
   
   
   
3. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Since the Wuhan Institute of Virology has already isolated live, novel SARS-like Coronavirus SL-CoV-WIV1 from bat droppings in 2016, and such virus has been confirmed to invade the host cells through the ACE2 of human beings just like the new, emergent Coronavirus 2019-nCoV — have the two coronaviruses been compared with each other? [i]Was there a vaccine developed from Coronavirus SL-CoV-WIV1 that can be tested on victims of the latest outbreak?[/i] After all, it’s been about four years now.[/color]
   
   
   
4. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Has any formal investigation been launched into any role the Wuhan Institute of Virology (and specifically, its Classification P4 Biosafety Laboratory) may have played in the pandemic outbreak?[/color]
   
   
   
5. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Did the new coronavirus penetrate the biosecurity measures of Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory? Did some bats mount a successful escape?[/color]
   
   
   
6. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Did any scientists, researchers, professors, observers, students, or other staff persons working at or visiting the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory visit the Huanan Seafood Market in the first twelve days of December, 2019?[/color]
   
   
   
7. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Since the original technology for viral confinement at the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory was developed in France, and since most of its actual, functional equipment was imported from France — has the laboratory received ongoing certification inspections from French officials, given its lengthy, ongoing activities using Class 4 pathogens (P4) — the most virulent viruses that pose the highest risk of aerosol-transmitted person-to-person infections? If so, where are the certification test results?[/color]
   
   
   
8. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Has the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory been regularly inspected and audited by Chinese government health officials, especially by Li Bin, minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission? If so, where are the inspection and audit results?[/color]
   
   
   
9. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Could there have been either a staff person or visitor who smuggled out the coronavirus from the laboratory? (After all, a Chinese national was just arrested at Harvard University for attempting to smuggle research vials back to China at the same time when the Coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak started.)[/color]
   
   
   
10. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]At any time did Prof. Zhengli Shi — who simultaneously currently holds the multiple titles of Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator, Director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, Director of BSL-3 Labatory, Director of the Committee of Biosafety, Director of Chinese Academy Sciences (CAS) Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, and Vice Director of BSL-4 Laboratory at Wuhan Institute of Virology, CAS — ever work directly or indirectly for the CCP military services or military intelligence community?[/color]
    
    
    
11. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Did Prof. Zhengli previously or does she currently co-conduct, coparticipate, collaborate, or collude with CCP military service members or military intelligence members?[/color]
    
    
    
12. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Do members of the CCP military services or military intelligence contribute or participate in any manner or conduct viral research at the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory?[/color]
    
    
    
13. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Why did the US National Institute of Health (NIH) grant Prof. Zhengli $665,000 in 2014 to fund her study, [i]The ecology of bat coronaviruses and the risk of future coronavirus emergence[/i]? What did the US receive in return?[/color]
    
    
    
14. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Why did the United States Agency of International Development grant Prof. Zhengli $559,500 to fund her study, [i]Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT 2_China[/i]? What did the US receive in return?[/color]
    
    
    
15. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Why did Prof. Zhengli receive funding from U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (the agency which deals specifically with [b]Weapons of Mass Destruction[/b]), the U.S. Biological Defense Research Directorate of the Naval Medical Research Center, and the Department of Atomic of the Government of India?[/color]
    
    
    
16. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]What other professional relationships with U.S. defense agencies does Prof. Zhengli have currently, or previously, in any capacity?[/color]
    
    
    
17. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]When Prof. Zhengli received a visa to the United States to present at the [i]Cell Symposium: Emerging and Re-emerging Viruses 2017[/i] conference in Arlington, Virginia, did she visit the Pentagon or meet with Pentagon officials, since it was less than a mile away?[/color]
    
    
    
18. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]When Prof. Zhengli received a visa to the United States to present at the US-China Workshop on Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases conference at UC Berkeley in 2018, did she visit Federal research facility, Lawrence-Berkeley-Livermore Laboratory — in particular, the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute — or meet with government officials, since it was only a mile and a half away?[/color]
    
    
    
19. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Of Prof. Zhengli’s 130 published scientific studies, 5 of them are not to be found anywhere. Why are they not public? [i]Are they classified?[/i][/color]
    
    
    
20. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Has Prof. Zhengli (or any other staff, resident or guest scientists, researchers, students, visitors, or others) at the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, or at Wuhan Institute of Virology in general, collaborated, participated with, colluded with, or in any way professionally acted in concert or collusion with, or in any way worked with or for, the World Economic Forum, the U.S. Center for Disease Control, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Pilbright Institute, the European Commission, the World Health Organization, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, or the John Hopkins Center for Health Security?[/color]
    
    
    
21. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Prof. Zhengli recently (January 23, 2020) claimed to know very little about the latest epidemic outbreak, including basic biology, animal source, or any specific treatment, and indicated she doesn’t know if ACE2 targeting drugs could treat Coronavirus 2019-nCoV infected victims. How can this be the case, given that she has studied human ACE2/coronavirus interaction for many years — even most recently in her study immediately preceding the outbreak — as reported in Prof. Zhengli’s study published the day immediately preceding the outbreak? “The full-length genes of MERS-CoV spike (GenBank accession number 415 AFS88936.1), SARS-CoV spike (GenBank accession number AFR58742), human DPP4 416 (GenBank accession number NM_001935.3) and human ACE2 (GenBank accession 417 number NM_021804) were synthesized (GenScript Biotech).”[/color]
    
    
    
22. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Considering Prof. Zhengli is the recipient of millions of dollars in grants and salaries, commands one of the world’s leading, most advanced biosafety laboratories, has performed innumerable research studies into coronaviruses for three decades and counting — what vaccines, to date, has she successfully produced? [i]Has she produced any successful coronavirus vaccines at all? If so, where are they and how have they been publicly administered?[/i][/color]
    

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)][color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)][b]Summary, conclusion, and just a wee bit of speculation[/b]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]The facts presented herein compel an alternative theory as to the origin of the Coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak. The truth remains to be formally investigated whether infected viral bio-matter from the National Biosafety Laboratory at Wuhan Institute of Virology — the only lab of its kind in all of China and under expressed safety concerns for almost a year — somehow escaped. And, if so, it also remains to be seen whether such a viral release and subsequent viral infection was accidental or intentional. In any event, the following observations and concerns seem to place considerable suspicion on the laboratory — and its Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator, Prof. Zhengli Shi — and its contemporaneous coronavirus research activity at the exact time of the Coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak officially reported at a location conveniently just 8.6 miles distant at Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, just across the Yangtze River:[/color][/color]
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1. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]The National Biosafety Laboratory at Wuhan Institute of Virology is the [i]only[/i] high-level P4 facility of its kind in all of China, literally the [i]only[/i] place where high contagious and infectious pathogens and diseases such as Ebola, SARS, MERS, and assorted coronaviruses can be “safely” studied, mutated, and engineered.[/color]
   
   
   
2. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]The professional background, experience, and qualifications of the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory’s Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator — Professor Zhengli Shi — is nonpareil. She has commandeered, produced and/or co-authored over 130 scientific studies, including dozens of reports specifically on coronaviruses. So specialized and talented is she that the even the United States has granted her over $1 million for her research conducted in China.[/color]
   
   
   
3. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]It cannot be overstated the importance and implication of the short distance between the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory and the reported epicenter of Coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak — the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market — of only 8.6 miles. With a total area of 3.8 million square miles, and a breadth of about 3,000 miles, these two locations are relatively-speaking right next to each other. Even before the lab’s government-announced formal operational opening, American scientists and biosafety experts had expressed their concerns for the laboratory, especially its proximity to the relatively large population of Wuhan, capital city of Hubei province.[/color]
   
   
   
4. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]At the time of the new coronavirus outbreak, or immediately preceding it, Prof. Zhengli was actively conducting coronavirus experiments and research at the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory. Notably, the [b][i]very next day[/i][/b] following the publishing of her coronavirus study on December 11, 2019, the first victims of Coronavirus 2019-nCoV were reported, as confessed by Prof. Zhengli herself in her most recent, latest report, posted online on January 23, 2020: “The epidemic, started from December 12th, 2019, has caused 198 laboratory confirmed infections with three fatal cases by January 20th, 2020.”[/color]
   
   
   
5. [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Most alarming is the apparent, glaring disingenuousness of Prof. Zhengli’s latest report, which is the only public statement since the official Chinese acknowledgement of Coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak in Wuhan. On January 23, 2020, she published the report with the allegedly misleading statements:[/color]
   

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)][color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)][i]“Finally, based on our results, it should be expected and worth to test if ACE2 targeting or SARS-CoV targeting drugs can be used for nCoV-2019 patients. At this stage, we know very little about the virus, including basic biology, animal source or any specific treatment. The almost identical sequences of this virus in different patients imply a probably recent introduction in humans, thus future surveillance on viral mutation and transmission ability and further global research attention are urgently needed.”[/i][/color][/color]

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)][color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]However, other Chinese scientists reported on January 22, 2020, “Results obtained from our analyses suggest that the 2019-nCoV appears to be a recombinant virus between the bat coronavirus and an origin-unknown coronavirus. The recombination occurred within the viral spike glycoprotein, which recognizes cell surface receptor.” Our findings suggest “that homologous recombination within the spike glycoprotein may contribute to cross-species transmission.” Although this other scientific team incorrectly attributes the originating species as reptilian (snake) instead of bats, they at least rapidly identified the coronavirus as a recombinant virus with one of the contributors being a bat coronavirus, and also discerned in what manner the genetic recombination occurred to allow for human infection: in a viral spike protein which recognized the cell surface receptor. But as shown previously, this precise area of coronavirus study involving spike protein and cell surface receptor was the focus of Prof. Zhengli’s contemporaneous December 2019 study published the day before the epidemic started. “Coronavirus spike protein mediates viral entry into cells by first binding to a receptor on host cell surface and then fusing viral and host membranes,” she wrote. [i]Why would she feign ignorance about this?[/i]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Even more concerning, on October 31, 2019, Prof. Zhengli had published a report entitled [i]Filovirus-reactive antibodies in humans and bats in Northeast India imply zoonotic spillover[/i], curiously funded by the [b]U.S. Department of Defense[/b], the [b]U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency[/b], the [b]U.S. Biological Defense Research Directorate of the Naval Medical Research Center[/b], and the [b]Department of Atomic Energy[/b] of the Government of India, and edited by a microbiologist employed by the [b]U.S. Center for Disease Control[/b].[/color]

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[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)][color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.541176)]U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency? Can viruses from bats be used as weapons of mass destruction?[/color][/color]

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)][color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Of note is the fact that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency is an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense and is the official Combat Support Agency for countering [b]weapons of mass destruction[/b]. [i]Why would they be funding this project? Could it be that these coronaviruses with filovirus reactive antibodies are being weaponised? Are they really that dangerous?[/i] [i]Could they actually be employed as a weapon of mass destruction?[/i] Well, let’s a take a look at what Prof. Zhengli was studying, filovirus surface glycoproteins:[/color]
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[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)][color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)][i]Bats are reservoirs for several zoonotic pathogens, including filoviruses. High risk activities at the bat-human interface pose the threat of zoonotic virus transmission. We present evidence for prior exposure of bat harvesters and two resident fruit bat species to filovirus surface glycoproteins. Our results indicate circulation of several filoviruses in bats and the possibility for filovirus transmission from bats to humans. Filoviruses, including ebolaviruses and marburgviruses, are pathogens with [b]epidemic potential[/b]. They were previously detected in bats and have caused disease outbreaks in humans with a high case fatality rate. Our findings suggest bats in South Asia act as a reservoir host of a diverse range of filoviruses and filovirus spillover occurs through human exposure to these bats.[/i][/color][/color]

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)][color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Thus, it’s readily apparent that just from this single project that Prof. Zhengli was quite aware that pathogenic viruses from bats could transmit from bats to humans via filovirus surface glycoproteins, with potentially epidemic consequences. Could our brilliant, pioneering, decorated Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator of the only Level P4 Biosafety Laboratory in China be feigning ignorance presently to deflect discovery of her connections to four major defense agencies and her possible stewardship of a brand-new bioactive weapon of mass destruction? At this point, only speculation is possible…[i]but if we’re going to speculate, let’s take one step more, shall we?[/i]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]Could there be a another study previously spearheaded by Prof. Zhengli whose findings may have attracted multiple American defense departments for such a project with epidemic potential? Perhaps we can find the answer in the study, [i]Discovery of Novel Bat Coronaviruses in South China That Use the Same Receptor as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus[/i], a seemingly important and relevant 2018 project where Prof. Zhengli provided evidence of a Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) “derived from the great evening bat that uses the same host receptor as human MERS-CoV. This virus also provides evidence for a [b]natural recombination event[/b] between the bat MERS-related CoV and another bat coronavirus, HKU4” (emphasis added). The purpose of this study was “the prevention and control of the spread of MERS-CoV to humans.” It pertains precisely to the implications presented by the current Coronavirus 2019-nCoV, which were identified by the other group of Chinese scientists as a bat-involved, recombinant virus with a viral spike protein, recognizing cell surface receptor and so able to infect human cells.[/color]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137)]And yet another highly relevant study with the potential to capture the attention of biowarfare officials in United States defense departments is [i]Discovery of a Rich Gene Pool of Bat SARS-related Coronaviruses Provides New Insights Into the Origin of SARS Coronavirus[/i], published in November 2017, where Prof. Zhengli and her colleagues conducted cell entry studies which “demonstrated that three newly identified SARSr-CoVs [SARS-related coronaviruses] with different [spike] protein sequences [b]are all able to use human ACE2 as the receptor[/b], further exhibiting the close relationship between strains in this cave and SARS-CoV. This work provides new insights into the origin and evolution of SARS-CoV and highlights the necessity of preparedness for future emergence of SARS-like diseases” (emphasis added).[/color][/color][/color]