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Post by Admin on Jan 18, 2021 19:21:07 GMT
Video taken just days before the start of the coronavirus pandemic shows a current World Health Organization (WHO) inspector discuss the testing of modified coronaviruses on human cells and humanized mice in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), just weeks before the first cases of COVID-19 were announced in the city of Wuhan itself. In a video that was originally taken on Dec. 9, 2019, three weeks before the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission announced an outbreak of a new form of pneumonia, virologist Vincent Racaniello interviewed British zoologist and president of EcoHealth Alliance Peter Daszak about his work at the nonprofit to protect the world from the emergence of new diseases and predict pandemics. Since 2014, Daszak's organization has received millions of dollars of funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), which it has funneled to the WIV to carry out research on bat coronaviruses. In the first phase of research, which took place from 2014 to 2019, Daszak coordinated with Shi Zhengli, (石正麗), also known as "Bat Woman," at the WIV on investigating and cataloging bat coronaviruses across China. EcoHealth Alliance received US$3.7 million in funding from the NIH for this research and 10 percent was channeled to the WIV, reported NPR. The second, more dangerous phase, which started in 2019, involved gain-of-function (GoF) research on coronaviruses and chimeras in humanized mice from the lab of Ralph S. Baric of the University of North Carolina. Funding for the program was withdrawn by the NIH under the Trump administration on April 27 amid the pandemic. At the 28:10 mark of the podcast interview, Daszak states that researchers found that SARS likely originated from bats and then set out to find more SARS-related coronaviruses, eventually finding over 100. He observed that some coronaviruses can "get into human cells in the lab," and others can cause SARS disease in "humanized mouse models." He ominously warned that such coronaviruses are "untreatable with therapeutic monoclonals [antibodies] and you can’t vaccinate against them with a vaccine." Ironically, he claims that his team's goal was trying to find the next "spillover event" that could cause the next pandemic, mere weeks before cases of COVID-19 were beginning to be reported in Wuhan. When Racaniello asks what can be done to deal with coronavirus given that there is no vaccine or therapeutic for them, Daszak at the 29:54 mark appears to reveal that the goal of the GoF experiments was to develop a pan-coronavirus vaccine for many different types of coronaviruses. Based on his response, it is evident that just before the start of the pandemic, the WIV was modifying coronaviruses in the lab. "You can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily." What he then mentioned has become the telltale trait of SARS-CoV-2, its spike protein: "Spike protein drives a lot of what happens with the coronavirus, zoonotic risk." Daszak mentions the WIV's collaboration with Baric: "and we work with Ralph Baric at UNC [University of North Carolina] to do this." As has been suggested by proponents that SARS-CoV-2 is a chimera made in a lab, he speaks of inserting the spike protein "into a backbone of another virus" and then doing "some work in the lab." Providing evidence of the creation of chimeras for the sake of a vaccine, he states "Now, the logical progression for vaccines is, if you are going to develop a vaccine for SARS, people are going to use pandemic SARS, but let’s try to insert these other related diseases and get a better vaccine.” Based on Daszak's statements, it appears that just before the start of the pandemic, the WIV was using GoF experiments with chimeras in an attempt to create a vaccine. These experiments appeared to have included infecting mice genetically modified to express the human ACE2 protein with these chimeras. In a presentation titled "Assessing Coronavirus Threats," which was delivered four years before the pandemic in 2015, Daszak points out that experiments involving humanized mice have the highest degree of risk. Demonstrating his close ties with the WIV, he also listed the lab as a collaborator at the end of the presentation. Controversially, Daszak has been included among a team of experts from the WHO that has finally been allowed by Beijing to investigate the origin of the outbreak of COVID-19, over a year after it started. Scientists such as Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, are condemning Daszak's participation due to conflicts of interest "that unequivocally disqualify him from being part of an investigation of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic," reported the Daily Mail. In light of the WHO's trip to Wuhan, a researcher who goes by the pseudonym Billy Bostickson and his colleagues at DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19) have created a petition demanding that the international investigation team answer 50 key questions about the outbreak in Wuhan. Among the questions is a request to access to the facility's database and laboratory records, which are supposed to go back 20 years and include a look at its safety procedures, safety audit reports, and safety incident reports.
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Post by Admin on Feb 3, 2021 20:41:37 GMT
A team of investigators led by the World Health Organization visited a virus research laboratory in China's central city of Wuhan and met with a prominent virologist there in its search for clues to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. The experts spent about 3-1/2 hours at the heavily-guarded Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been at the centre of some conspiracy theories that claim a laboratory leak caused the city's first coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019. "Extremely important meeting today with staff at WIV including Dr Shi Zhengli. Frank, open discussion. Key questions asked & answered," team member Peter Daszak said on Twitter. Shi, a well-known virus hunter who has long focused on bat coronaviruses - earning her the nickname "Bat Woman" - was among the first last year to isolate the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Most scientists, including Shi, reject the hypothesis of a lab leak. However, some experts speculate that a virus captured from the wild could have figured in lab experiments to test the risks of a human spillover and then escaped via an infected staff member. "Very interesting. Many questions," Thea Fischer, a Danish member of the team, called from her car as it sped away from the lab following Wednesday's visit, in response to a question whether the team had found anything. Some scientists have called for China to release details of all coronavirus samples studied at the lab, to see which most closely resembles SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the respiratory disease. The WHO, which has sought to manage expectations for the Wuhan mission, has said its members would be limited to visits organised by their Chinese hosts and have no contact with community members, because of health restrictions. While the novel coronavirus that sparked the pandemic was first identified in Wuhan, Beijing has sought to cast doubt on the notion that it originated in China, pointing to imported frozen food as a possible conduit. The team will spend two weeks conducting field work after having completed two weeks in hotel quarantine after arrival in Wuhan.
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Post by Admin on Feb 3, 2021 22:17:14 GMT
The director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at WIV, Shi Zhengli (石正麗), also known as "Bat Woman," has since 2007 been researching how spike proteins in natural and chimeric SARS-like coronaviruses bind to the ACE2 receptors in the cells of humans, bats, and other animals. Since 2014, she and her team have carried out dangerous gain-of-function (GOF) experiments with bat coronavirus chimeras. In 2019, a member of Shi's team, assistant researcher Hu Ben (胡犇), embarked on high-risk GOF research on coronaviruses and chimeras in humanized mice from the lab of American microbiologist Ralph S. Baric of the University of North Carolina. According to a researcher who goes by the pseudonym Billy Bostickson, "This research involved 'novel' bat coronaviruses inoculated into immuno-suppressed mice with humanized features, such as hACE2, and possibly humanized lungs, bone marrow, etc..." Since the outbreak of COVID-19 later that year, Shi has repeatedly denied allegations that the virus leaked from her lab, claiming she had tested all of their samples without finding an exact match for the strain of the virus that has infected humans. Instead, Shi posited that the "coronavirus is nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilized living habits" and said, "I swear on my life that it has nothing to do with our laboratory," reported Caixin. However, in 2010, Shi published a paper describing a scenario in which infected rodents led to a deadly virus being leaked from a Chinese lab. The paper, titled "Hantavirus outbreak associated with laboratory rats in Yunnan, China," reports on an incident in which an outbreak of hantavirus hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) occurred at a college in Kunming as the result of a lab leak in 2003. Shi wrote that 15 students on the campus contracted hemorrhagic fever, and a test of their blood serum revealed that they had hantavirus antibodies in their system. A genome sequence revealed that the culprit was a new Hantaan virus isolate, and further analysis showed the isolate was a reassortant derived from human and rat Hantaan viruses. An investigation of the epidemic revealed that the index patient was a 24-year-old male graduate student. He had been working with rats in a laboratory on campus, which he had not left in two months. Hantavirus outbreak associated with laboratory rats in Yunnan, China
Abstract An outbreak of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome occurred among students in a college (College A) in Kunming, Yunnan province, China in 2003. Subsequent investigations revealed the presence of hantavirus antibodies and antigens in laboratory rats at College A and two other institutions. Hantavirus antibodies were detected in 15 additional individuals other than the index case in these three locations. Epidemiologic data indicated that the human infections were a result of zoonotic transmission of the virus from laboratory rats. A virus was isolated from rats in College A and the full-length genome sequence revealed that this was a new Hantaan virus isolate, designated strain KY. Sequence analysis of the three genome segments indicated that this new isolate is a reassortant derived from human and rat Hantaan viruses. Further sequence analysis of the medium (M) genome segment revealed that it originated from a recombination event between two rat Hantaan virus lineages.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meegid.2010.03.015
The student said that he was in charge of feeding the lab rats on a daily basis and that he had been bitten by one 10 days before he began to exhibit clinical symptoms of HFRS. A serological study of 60 rats in the lab revealed that 29 had antibodies for hantavirus. The Centre of Laboratory Animals (CLA) had supplied the rats to that and seven other colleges. A study of the CLA and those schools revealed the presence of the antigen in rats at CLA and two of the colleges, including the one the student attended. Because the prevalence of the hantavirus antigen was the highest by far in the rats at the CLA, scientists concluded that rats supplied by his center were the source of the outbreak. To rule out the possibility that humans had transmitted the disease after acquiring it elsewhere, serum samples were collected from 172 students and staff members from the colleges and CLA. Among the seropositive individuals were four students from the same college as the index case and 11 animal handlers. None of these individuals had a recent history of travel to areas where hantavirus outbreaks had occurred, nor had they received the vaccine, thus eliminating the possibility that the virus had been introduced from outside the lab. Shi pointed out that the CLA had lax safety measures, with different species of rodents housed and fed in the same room. Many other types of animals were kept in the room as well. She wrote that although screens had been installed on the windows in the room, at least one window had a broken screen. Worse still, the ventilation fan in the room had not functioned for six months, leading to poor air circulation and serving as a perfect breeding ground for viruses. Interestingly, Shi emphasized that six wild rats were trapped outside the lab to determine if the infection had been introduced from outside. However, all the wild rats tested negative for the disease. An Australian geneticist who publishes scientific papers under the name Zhang Daoyu told Taiwan News that Shi pointed to the lack of animal infections outside the facility as important evidence that the virus leak had occurred within the lab. In the case of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, none of the animals at the now-infamous Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market actually tested positive for the virus, reported Live Science. Therefore, based on Shi's own logic, and given that her lab is the only one in Wuhan that was carrying out dangerous GOF experiments on bat coronaviruses, the lack of any wild animals infected with COVID-19 would be an important indicator that the outbreak in the city was the result of a leak from her lab. Rather than take her word as the final verdict, a growing number of scientists are calling on Shi to provide independent investigators with access to the WIV's database and laboratory records to prove once and for all whether the virus came from the lab or not.
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Post by Admin on Feb 27, 2022 3:32:25 GMT
A market in Wuhan, China, that sold live animals likely was the point of origin for the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a pair of studies released Saturday. “When you look at all of the evidence together, it’s an extraordinarily clear picture that the pandemic started at the Huanan market,” said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who co-authored both studies, told the New York Times. The studies have yet to be published in a scientific journal. Researchers analyzed data from a variety of sources to seek clues to how the pandemic began. They concluded it was present in live mammals sold at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in late 2019. “The most probable explanation for the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into humans involves zoonotic jumps from an as-yet-undetermined, intermediate host animal at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market,” says one study. The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence Michael Worobey; Joshua I. Levy; Lorena M. Malpica Serrano; Alexander Crits-Christoph; Jonathan E. Pekar; Stephen A. Goldstein; Angela L. Rasmussen; Moritz U. G. Kraemer; Chris Newman; Marion P. G. Koopmans; Marc A. Suchard; Joel O. Wertheim; Philippe Lemey; David L. Robertson; Robert F. Garry; Edward C. Holmes; Andrew Rambaut; Kristian G. Andersen Geographical clustering of the earliest known COVID-19 cases and the proximity of positive environmental samples to live-animal vendors suggest that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the site of origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. zenodo.org/record/6299116#.YhrwVDhBzIVSARS-CoV-2 emergence very likely resulted from at least two zoonotic events Pekar, Jonathan E.; Magee, Andrew; Parker, Edyth; Moshiri, Niema; Izhikevich, Katherine; Havens, Jennifer L.; Gangavarapu, Karthik; Malpica Serrano, Lorena M.; Crits-Christoph, Alexander; Matteson, Nathaniel L.; Zeller, Mark; Levy, Joshua I.; Wang, Jade C.; Hughes, Scott; Lee, Jungmin; Park, Heedo; Park, Man-Seong; Ching Zi Yan, Katherine; Tzer Pin Lin, Raymond; Mat Isa, Mohd Noor; Muhammad Noor, Yusuf; Vasylyeva, Tetyana I.; Garry, Robert F.; Holmes, Edward C.; Rambaut, Andrew; Suchard, Marc A.; Andersen, Kristian G.; Worobey, Michael; Wertheim, Joel O. Understanding the circumstances that lead to pandemics is critical to their prevention. Here, we analyze the pattern and origin of genomic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 early in the COVID-19 pandemic. We show that the SARS-CoV-2 genomic diversity prior to February 2020 comprised only two distinct viral lineages—denoted A and B—with no transitional haplotypes. Novel phylodynamic rooting methods, coupled with epidemic simulations, indicate that these two lineages were the result of at least two separate cross-species transmission events into humans. The first zoonotic transmission likely involved lineage B viruses and occurred in late-November/early-December 2019 and no earlier than the beginning of November 2019, while the introduction of lineage A likely occurred within weeks of the first event. These findings define the narrow window between when SARS-CoV-2 first jumped into humans and when the first cases of COVID-19 were reported. Hence, as with SARS-CoV-1 in 2002 and 2003, SARS-CoV-2 emergence likely resulted from multiple zoonotic events. zenodo.org/record/6291628#.Yhqv2-7MI-Q
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Post by Admin on Jul 27, 2022 18:37:23 GMT
The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic
Abstract Understanding how severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in 2019 is critical to preventing zoonotic outbreaks before they become the next pandemic. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, was identified as a likely source of cases in early reports but later this conclusion became controversial. We show the earliest known COVID-19 cases from December 2019, including those without reported direct links, were geographically centered on this market. We report that live SARS-CoV-2 susceptible mammals were sold at the market in late 2019 and, within the market, SARS-CoV-2-positive environmental samples were spatially associated with vendors selling live mammals. While there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events, and exact circumstances remain obscure, our analyses indicate that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred via the live wildlife trade in China, and show that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On 31 December 2019, the Chinese government notified the World Health Organization (WHO) of an outbreak of severe pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, Hubei province (1–4), a city of approximately 11 million people. Of the initial 41 people hospitalized with unknown pneumonia by 2 January 2020, 27 (66%) had direct exposure to the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market (hereafter, “Huanan market”) (2, 5, 6). These first cases were confirmed to be infected with a novel coronavirus, subsequently named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and were suffering from a disease later named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The initial diagnoses of COVID-19 were made in several hospitals independently between 18 and 29 December 2019 (5). These early reports were free from ascertainment bias as they were based on signs and symptoms before the Huanan market was identified as a shared risk factor (5). A subsequent systematic review of all cases notified to China’s National Notifiable Disease Reporting System by hospitals in Wuhan as part of the joint WHO-Chinese “WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part” (hereafter, “WHO mission report”) (7) showed that 55 of 168 of the earliest known COVID-19 cases were associated with this market. However, the observation that the preponderance of early cases were linked to the Huanan market does not establish that the pandemic originated there.
Sustained live mammal sales during 2019 occurred at the Huanan and three other markets in Wuhan, including wild and farmed wild-life (8). Several of these species are known to be experimentally susceptible to SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs), such as SARS-CoV (hereafter, “SARS-CoV-1”) and SARS-CoV-2 (9–11). During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, animals sold at the Huanan market were hypothesized to be the source of the unexplained pneumonia cases (12–19) (data S1), consistent with the emergence of SARS-CoV-1 from 2002-2004 (20), as well as other viral zoonoses (21–23). This led to the decision to close and sanitize the Huanan market on 1 January 2020, with environmental samples also being collected from vendors’ stalls (7, 12, 24) (data S1).
Determining the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic at a neighborhood- rather than city-level could help resolve if SARS-CoV-2 had a zoonotic origin, similar to SARS-CoV-1 (20). In this study, we obtained data from a range of sources to test the hypothesis that the COVID-19 pandemic began at the Huanan market. Despite limited testing of live wildlife sold at the market, collectively, our results provide evidence that the Huanan market was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic and suggest that SARS-CoV-2 likely emerged from the live wildlife trade in China. However, events upstream of the market, as well as exact circumstances at the market, remain obscure, highlighting the need for further studies to understand and lower the risk of future pandemics.
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