What was the origin of the Wuhan virus?

 

Carrie Gracie (“China has been rewriting the facts to suit its Covid-19 story,” 26 July 2020; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/27/china-truth-coronavirus-panorama-xi-jinping) is a very experienced sinologist, and explains cogently some of the disinformation practices by Beijing over the coronacrisis.

But she is too accepting of the received narrative that the virus emerged from a viral transfer between bats and mammals (perhaps pangolins) within the Wuhan wet-live food market in December 2019.

There have been copious reports from athletes from Germany (Jacueline Bock), Italy (Matteo Tagliariol) and France (Elodie Clouvel)  that they had Covid19 symptoms while  participating in the World Military games held in Wuhan in October last year.

And, as the Guardian has reported (“French hospital discovers Covid-19 case from December,  4 May 2020; www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/french-hospital-discovers-covid-19-case-december-retested) Dr Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals in Paris recorded one patient who had his blood sample re-analysed was found positive for Covid-19 on 27 December, before China claimed the outbreak happened in the Wuhan market.

I recorded in my own blog, posted on 27 April this year (“China's brilliant virology discoveries go unrecognized in the West;” http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2020/04/chinas-brilliant-virology-discoveries.html) stated the following:

“In 2018, the Chinese state Nanjing Military Research Institute published details research on a new bat virus they had found near Zhoushan city, in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang.”

Building on this, the virologist, Dr Zhi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virology  Research Institute (WVRI) did complex research on ‘splitting’  the Sars virus, producing four key papers [published in Western science journals], that looked into the possibility of  developing self-replicating synthetic coronaviruses ( assessing the  so-called “S” protein).”

On 26 January this year, the United States’ Government Centers for Diseases Control published a paper on viral transfer from bats. 

The researchers found the new virus was not one found in the kind of bats sometimes on sale at the Wuhan market.

Labour MP Nadia Whittome, asked the department of health in late March if mmonsit would initiate research into the security control of viruses under investigation at the Wuhan State Institute of Virology, only to be dismissed bluntly by heath minister Jo Churchill with: "We have no plans to authorise research into the security control of viruses under investigation at the Wuhan State Institute of Virology." (Written answer, 26 March 2020;

Number 29268)

 

Why is the UK Government not interested in discovering the source of the pandemic? 

Which leaves the unanswered question: what was the original source of the fugitive virus in Wuhan, if not the market?”