COVID Origin: Lab Leak or From Nature (Video, Transcript)

FORMER NYT WRITER: COVID – MANMADE OR NATURAL EVOLUTION (From Animal to Man)? Former New York Times science writer explained in great detail the 2 theories of COVID origins in his May 2021 article: ‘The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?’ (Archive) By Nicholas Wade (May 5, 2021) Wade’s goal is for readers to decide: We wanted to “provide readers with the evidence to make their own judgments.” He sorted the scientific facts, named names, provided links to data, exposed conflict of interests and connections. There are two main theories about COVID-19 origin: 1. Natural emergence: “that it jumped naturally from wildlife to people.” This theory is favored by Fauci and the leftist media. 2. Wuhan lab leak: “that the virus was under study in a lab, from which it escaped.” “It matters a great deal which is the case if we hope to prevent a second such occurrence,” noted Nicholas Wade. Wade also analyzed two letters/articles written by scientists to push the theory of “natural emergence”:  (These virologists received grant money from Fauci’s NIH.) “From early on, public and media perceptions were shaped in favor of the natural emergence scenario by strong statements from two scientific groups. These statements were not at first examined as critically as they should have been,” wrote Wade. – Letter #1: The Lancet letter “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” a group of virologists and others wrote in the Lancet on February 19, 2020, when it was really far too soon for anyone to be sure what had happened. Scientists “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,” they said, with a stirring rallying call for readers to stand with Chinese colleagues on the frontline of fighting the disease. – Letter #2: The Andersen group: A second statement that had enormous influence in shaping public attitudes was a letter (in other words an opinion piece, not a scientific article) published on 17 March 2020 in the journal Nature Medicine. Its authors were a group of virologists led by Kristian G. Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute. “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” the five virologists declared in the second paragraph of their letter. Unfortunately, this was another case of poor science, in the sense defined above. (…) Andersen and his colleagues were assuring their readers of something they could not know.

HIGHLIGHTS PROVIDED BY MARK LEVIN Mark Levin read sections of Wade’s article during his Sunday TV show, Life, Liberty & Levin: (March 5, 2023) Video links: YouTube | Rumble Mark Levin: This is the biggest scandal in American history, if not one of the biggest scandals in medical and scientific history RUSH TRANSCRIPT [Emphasis added] MARK LEVIN: Have you noticed, I’d say the last three, four or five years, the level of incompetence of the ruling class and the amount of cover up and censorship and lies that take place, they want more and more power centralized in Washington, DC. They want a say over every aspect of your life, and then when it comes to them actually doing their duties, they won’t do them. And probably the greatest source for this kind of misdirection and incompetence is the American media. I mean, Russia collusion. They handed up Pulitzer Prizes like lollipops. The problem was there was no Russia collusion. The media pushing government propaganda about masks and now we have thorough studies that say masks have no consequence. Or lockdowns and shutdowns that destroyed people’s lives, their businesses, their home lives and so forth. Now, we know lockdowns didn’t do a damn thing. And we could go on and on and on. What about natural immunity? We had experts from Stanford and Rockefeller College and Oxford and Yale who said, natural immunity is what we need. The elderly and those who have other kind of serious issues, medically, perhaps they should have vaccines, but we don’t need vaccines for the entire country. It didn’t matter. Now, what about the origin of this virus? Of the COVID virus? This to me is one of the biggest scandal in American history, if not one of the biggest scandals in medical and scientific history. There was an entire propaganda campaign led by CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC. The only major network that dared to question this was FOX. Just as FOX questioned and people on FOX, Russia collusion; just as folks here questioned masks; just as folks here questioned lockdowns, and we happened to be right. The news operation in FOX is second to none, and those who provide opinions here really are top of the line as far as I’m concerned. But let’s get into this. Let’s talk briefly about the story of the origin of COVID that killed millions of people worldwide at the hands of the Communist Party in China, that is still in cover-up mode, threatening anybody who dares to even raise this issue. And still, Joe Biden is in cover-up mode, the Manchurian President who is bought and paid for, in my humble opinion, by that government. One of the first real scientific analyses of this was by Nicholas Wade. I had him here almost two years ago to discuss this and he became, in many quarters a pariah, even though this is a man who has been an investigative science writer for almost half a century and he wrote this 35-page, significant essay. [’The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?’ (Published on Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 5, 2021)] Well, where did this virus come from? Was it manmade or was it natural? And he said, we don’t have the hard proof because they won’t let us in the lab, which would give us the hard proof. But he said the overwhelming evidence points to the lab. And I want you to listen to this very, very carefully. [Wade] said: WADE: The virus that caused the pandemic is known officially as SARS-CoV-2, but can be called SARS2 for short. As many people know, there are two main theories about its origin. One is that it jumped naturally from wildlife to people. The other is that the virus was under study in a lab from which it escaped. It matters a great deal which is the case if we hope to prevent a second such occurrence. [Wade] goes on. He says: WADE: … From early on, public and media perceptions were shaped in favor of the natural emergence scenario by strong statements from two scientific groups. Remember those two letters? WADE: These statements were not at first examined as critically as they should have been. Now, who should have examined them? The media. [Here Wade writes about the Lancet letter from virologists.] [Wade] writes: WADE: Contrary to the letter writers’ assertion [the first letter], the idea that the virus might have escaped from a lab invoked an accident, not a conspiracy. It surely needed to be explored, not rejected out of hand. A defining mark of good scientists is that they go to great pains to distinguish between what they know and what they don’t know. By this criterion, the signatories of the Lancet letter [that first letter] were behaving as poor scientists: They were assuring the public effects they could not know for sure were true. It later turned out that The Lancet letter had been organized and drafted by Peter Dazsak, President of the EcoHealth Alliance of New York. Daszak’s organization funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. If the SARS2 virus had indeed escaped from research he funded, Daszak would be potentially culpable. This acute conflict of interest was not declared to the Lancet’s readers. In other words, [Dazsak] helps organize this letter, gets several dozen people to sign it and doesn’t reveal that money was washed through his organization to go to the lab for gain-of-function research. WADE: To the contrary, the letter concluded, “We declare no competing interests.” Virologists like Daszak have much at stake in the assigning of blame for the pandemic. For 20 years, mostly beneath the public’s attention, they had been playing a dangerous game. In their laboratories they routinely created viruses more dangerous than those that exist in nature. They argued that they could do so safely and that by getting ahead of nature, they can predict and prevent natural “spillovers,” the cross-over viruses from an animal host to people. If SARS2 [the coronavirus] had indeed escaped from such a laboratory experiment, a savage blowback could be expected, and the storm of public indignation would affect virologists everywhere, not just in China. And [Wade] goes on. [Here Wade writes about the second letter by Kristian Andersen’s group in journal Nature Medicine ‘The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2… in support of their declaration that the SARS2 [coronavirus] virus was clearly not manipulated.] WADE: [The second letter by an American group], the Andersen group, grounded in nothing but two inconclusive speculations convinced the world’s press that SARS2 could not have escaped from a lab. A technical critique of the Andersen letter takes it down in harsher words. Science is supposedly a self-correcting community of experts who constantly check each other’s work. So, why didn’t other virologists point out that the Andersen group’s argument [that second letter] was full of absurdly large holes? Perhaps because in today’s universities speech can be very costly. Careers can be destroyed for stepping out of line. Any virologist who challenges the community’s declared view risks having his next grant application turned down by the panel of fellow virologists that advises the government grant distribution agency. And they are mocked and humiliated by MSNBC hosts, by CNN hosts, by The New York Times, by The Washington Post. They are mocked and humiliated by CBS and NBC and ABC. The media in this country is a disaster. It just gives you the scarlet letter and then they don’t want a discussion and you see it throughout. You saw it with the Hunter Biden laptop and on and on and on with issue after issue after issue because they are ideologically driven, like never before. [Wade] says: WADE: Natural emergence [that is animal to man] was the media’s preferred theory until around February 2021 and the visit by a World Health Organization (WHO) commissioned to China. The commission’s composition and access were heavily controlled by the Chinese authorities. Its members, who included the ubiquitous Daszak, kept asserting before, during, and after their visit that the lab escape was extremely unlikely. But this was not quite the propaganda victory that Chinese authorities may have been hoping for. What became clear was that the Chinese had no evidence to offer the commission in support of the natural emergence theory. None. [Here Wade writes about the “Bat Lady” or Shi Zheng-li.] WADE: [B]y a strange twist in the story, [one of the top Chinese neurologists, the top virologist at the Wuhan lab] her work was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Right, Mr. Fauci? By you. WADE: [NIAID], a part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). And grant proposals that funded her work, which are a matter of public record, specify exactly what she planned to do with the money. The grants were assigned to the prime contractor, [this guy] Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, who subcontracted them to Shi [that is the expert, the virologist in China I was just talking about.] So you can see these connections and you can see how in so many ways we were sold out as a people. WADE: What this means, in non-technical terms is that Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. (…) The methodical approach was designed to find the best combination of coronavirus backbone and spike protein for infecting human cells. (…) It cannot yet be stated that Shi did or did not generate SARS2 in her lab because her records have been sealed, but it seems she was certainly on the right track to have done so. “It is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice,” says Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and leading expert on biosafety. “It is also clear,” Ebright said, “that, depending on the constant genomic contexts chosen for analysis, this work could have produced SARS-CoV-2 or a proximal progenitor of SARS-CoV-2.” (…) The lab escape scenario for the origin of the SARS2 virus [the coronavirus], as should by now be evident, is not mere hand-waving in the direction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It is a detailed proposal, based on the specific project being funded there by the NIAID. You didn’t hear that from any of the media at the time. You did hear it here and on this network. Required levels of lab safety. What are the required levels? For this, it is supposed to be what they called BSL4. What’s BSL4? WADE: [BSL4] The most restrictive and designed for deadly pathogens like the Ebola virus. Like the research on what would become the coronavirus. What happened? It was down at BSL Level 2. WADE: ”The new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-contaminant laboratory,” the inspectors wrote in a cable [to the State Department, ours, in 2018]. The real problem, however, was not the unsafe state of the Wuhan BSL4 lab but the fact that virologists worldwide don’t like working in BSL4 conditions. [They have to put all these suits on and these masks on and in that lab, they weren’t.] “It’s clear that some or all of this work was being performed using a biosafety standard – biosafety level 2… Even more. WADE: Three people working at a BSL3 lab at the Institute fell sick within a week of each other with severe symptoms that required hospitalization. This was “the first known cluster that we’re aware of, of the victims of what we believe to be COVID-19.” Influenza could not completely be ruled out but seemed unlikely in the circumstances. Well, of course it does. Now what about the natural side that had jumped from animals to man? WADE: The uniform structure of SARS2 [the coronavirus] genomes gives no hint of any passage through an intermediate animal host, and no such host has been identified in nature. Proponents of natural emergence [including in the media, including Fauci and our entire government] suggest that SARS2 incubated in a yet-to-be found human population before gaining its special properties. Or that it jumped to a host animal outside China. All these conjectures are possible, but strained. Proponents of a lab leak have a simpler explanation. SARS2 was adapted to human cells from the start because it was grown in humanized mice or in lab cultures of human cells, just as described in Daszak’s grant proposal [originally]. So you can see that the weight of evidence is overwhelming for a lab leak and this is several years ago. WADE: The direct-from-bats thesis is a chimera between the natural emergence and lab escape scenarios. It’s a possibility that can’t be dismissed. But against it are the facts…Neither the natural emergence nor the lab escape hypothesis can yet be ruled out. There is still no direct evidence for either. So no definitive conclusion can be reached. That said, the available evidence leans more strongly in one direction than the other. Readers will form their own opinion. But it seems to me that proponents of lab escape can explain all the available facts about SARS2 considerably more easily than can those who favor natural emergence. It’s documented that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were doing gain-of-function experiments designed to make coronaviruses infect human cells and humanized mice. This is exactly the kind of experiment from which a SARS2-like virus could have emerged. The researchers were not vaccinated against the viruses under study, and they were working in the minimal safety conditions of a BSL2 laboratory. So escape of a virus would not be at all surprising. In all of China, the pandemic broke out on the doorstep of the Wuhan institute. The virus was already well adapted to humans, as expected for a virus grown in humanized mice. It possessed an unusual enhancement, a furin cleavage site, which is not possessed by any other known SARS-related beta-coronavirus, and this site included a double arginine codon also unknown among beta-coronaviruses. What more evidence could you want, aside from the presently unobtainable lab records documenting SARS2’s creation? And then he goes on to point out. What did the proponents of the natural emergence have? The natural emergence — nothing. Zero. And now we have the Energy Department says, well, it probably came from this lab and now we have the FBI Director saying it did come from this lab. And I want to remind you of something, if this leak hadn’t occurred, that is the leak of this information earlier this week, we still wouldn’t know about this. This is a massive scandal and coverup by the federal government on behalf of the Communist Chinese. – – – – – – – – – – – – – END OF RUSH TRANSCRIPT – – – – – – – – – – – – –

TIMELINE: Team Fauci Tried to Suppress the Wuhan Lab Leak Theory (Video 3/2/2023, Transcript)

(UPDATED TIMELINE) COVID ORIGINS, FAUCI’s EMAILS, AND FBI & DOE SUPPORT THE LAB LEAK THEORY This is an update of the previous timeline done by Bret Baier in January 2022. This one includes the latest news that government agencies (FBI, Energy Dept.) are coming around and favoring the Wuhan lab leak theory. Internal Documents Reveal Wuhan Lab Origins were Suppressed by Team Fauci On March 2, 2023, Bret Baier provided an updated timeline (from Jan. 2020 through Feb. 2023) of internal emails showing how scientists and U.S. government officials tried to control the information about the coronavirus origins. Baier tweeted: “Tonight we continue to dive into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic as more agencies come out and say it appears to have been a Wuhan lab leak.” Tonight we continue to dive into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic as more agencies come out and say it appears to have been a lab leak #foxnews #SpecialReporthttps://t.co/jnBUBbkIAC — Bret Baier (@BretBaier) March 2, 2023 Other video link via Fox News: RUSH TRANSCRIPT: [Emphasis added] BAIER: We have shown you this timeline before. The origins of COVID-19, what happened over the months. But with new information and new details, just within the past few days, we thought we would go through it again. More than three years ago this mysterious virus began to spread in Wuhan, China. The World Health Organization said at the time initial COVID-19 cases seemed to be connected to a wet market in the city of Wuhan. But, behind closed doors, a new theory was discussed that the virus originated in a lab. Some officials pushed back publicly on that idea but over time, agencies and experts have increasingly begun to support the lab leak theory. January 2020, the world first learns that patients in Wuhan, China are suffering serious complications from an unknown virus. And we soon realize infections from a novel coronavirus are fueling a fast-spreading global pandemic. By mid-month the first U.S. case of COVID is reported in Washington state. Health experts conclude the outbreak is due to human-to-human transmission. [January 24, 2020] FAUCI: It’s really a big difference with the Chinese this time now they look like they are being quite transparent and cooperative with us. In January of last year, Fox News obtained internal communications from the National Institutes of Health. Those emails from the earliest days of the crisis revealed NIH head Dr. Anthony Fauci was warned COVID may have leaked from a Chinese government-run lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology. January 27th, [2020,] Fauci is told the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has been indirectly funding the Wuhan lab through EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based scientific nonprofit that had been working with novel coronaviruses. January 31st, Dr. Kristian Andersen, a noted virologist at the Scripps Lab privately tells Fauci that after discussions with his colleagues, some of COVID-19’s features, potentially look engineered and: “The genome is inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.” Fauci reacts immediately and organizes an all-hands-on-deck conference call with colleagues. He tells the deputy director of the agency, Dr. Hugh Auchincloss of the urgency: “Read this paper as well as the email that I will forward to you now. You will have tasks today that must be done.” Fauci also holds a conference call with a dozen virologists from around the world. Some immunologists were not convinced the virus occurred naturally. Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane University wrote, “I really can’t think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat virus or one very similar to it to nCoV where you insert exactly 4 amino acids 12 nucleotide that all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function. That, and you don’t change any other amino acid in S2? I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature… Of course, in the lab it would be easy to generate the perfect 12 base insert that you wanted.” Notes of the meeting also revealed those suspicions of a Wuhan lab leak are suppressed over concerns that public revelations of Chinese government involvement would do, “great potential harm to science and international harmony.” Dr. Garry later says a consensus is reached for drafting a report: “1. Don’t try to write a paper at all – it’s unnecessary; or, 2. if you do write it[,] don’t mention a lab origin as that will just add fuel to the conspiracists.” Just four days later [February 4, 2020] , five American, British and Australian researchers who are all on that Fauci conference call, author preliminary findings that abandon their earlier private beliefs that COVID was likely the result of a laboratory leak. It’s unclear what new evidence prompted such a drastic 180. But private communications show the various drafts of their report are sent to Fauci and Collins for editing and approval. The records do not reveal if they, in fact, edited the new version. Weeks later a final version of that report is posted. Again, a total reversal of what those virologists wrote in private emails earlier. March 17th, in Nature Medicine: “Our analysis clearly shows that COVID is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.” But that was not enough to tamp down what multiple sources inside and outside government believed, that the Wuhan lab was, indeed, the COVID ground zero. [April 15, 2020] [Bret Baier reported:] “Multiple sources say this may be the costliest government cover-up of all time by China… There is a growing belief that the COVID-19 virus originated in the Wuhan lab, not as a bioweapon but as China’s effort to find and deal with viruses to show the world China was as good as or better than the U.S. on that front.” [April 15, 2020] Later that day President Trump is asked about our reporting. [Trump said:] “More and more we are hearing the story. We are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation that happened.” The next day April 16th a frustrated Collins emails Fauci, “Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy.” Collins’ email includes a link to our “Special Report” and FoxNews.com reporting. A day later, Fauci replies: “I would not do anything about this right now. It is a shiny object that will go away in times [sic].” A month later we learn doctors Drs. Kristian Andersen and Robert Garry are awarded a nearly $9 million research grant from Fauci’s agency. A month after that Dr. Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, the group that did the original U.S.-funded experiments with the Chinese at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, received a $7.5 million grant over 5 years from Dr. Fauci. [May 26, 2021] President Biden a year later tasks the U.S. Intelligence community to probe the COVID origins, but its August report was inconclusive due in large part to China’s unwillingness to assist with the investigation. [August 12, 2021] BAIER: You clarify that you thought it was not a weaponized thing from the Chinese but that it may have been a lab accident. It seems more and more pointing that way. Are you confident saying that or closer to that? DR. COLLINS (NIH Director): You know, I don’t think I have any more new information to be able to tip the balance. Certainly possible that this was somehow understudied in the lab even though it was not human-engineered from scratch. I’m quite confident of that. [August 2021] Eight intelligence agencies participated in a review of the coronavirus origins. Four of those, along with the National Intelligence Council, judged with low confidence that the virus likely originated from natural exposure. [July 22, 2022] FAUCI: We think it’s more likely that it was a natural evolution. BAIER: You still believe that? There are more and more organizations that point right to a lab leak. FAUCI: No, no. That’s not so, Bret. BAIER: I mean, there are more people saying it. We are hearing it around the world. FAUCI: More people saying it doesn’t mean there’s more evidence of it… If you take a group of emails where people are considering and thinking out loud and you stop there, and don’t look at the weeks of careful examination by those same people that wrote the emails and then say you know now that we have looked at it, in the published peer review literature, they explain very clearly why they think it’s a natural occurrence. [Feb. 2023]: The Energy Department determined with low confidence the virus likely spread from a mishap at the Wuhan lab. However, some Biden officials and Dr. Fauci have not changed their view on the origins. [February 27, 2023] JOHN KIRBY (National Security Council spokesman): Their work is still ongoing. There hasn’t been a final conclusion arrived at here. FAUCI: We may not ever know. That’s unfortunate but that’s the possibility that we might not ever know. BAIER: The Energy Department joins the FBI in supporting the lab leak theory. FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke for the first time about that assessment on “Special Report.” [February 28, 2023]: CHRISTOPHER WRAY (FBI Director): The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan. Let me step back for a second. You know, the FBI has folks, agents, professionals, analysts, virologists, microbiologists, etc. who focus on the dangers of biological threats which include things like novel viruses like COVID. And the concerns that in the wrong hands some bad guys, a hostile nation-state, a terrorist, a criminal, the threats that those could pose. So here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans. And that’s precisely what that capability was designed for. I should add that our work related to this continues and there is not a whole lot of details that I can share that aren’t classified. I will just make the observation that the Chinese government seems, to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here. BAIER: Director Wray’s comments were as definitive as any official has said publicly about the origins of COVID. Two agencies though remain undecided in determining those origins. China meantime continues to deny the lab leak theory saying this week, rehashing that will only hurt the reputation of the United States. Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are also investigating the origins of COVID and have launched a select committee over that matter and the U.S. taxpayer dollars that were funneled into the Wuhan lab.

RELATED – PROOF: COVID-19 Looks Engineered (Email to Fauci, 1/31/2020: Image & Transcript) – LIST: COVID Myths Debunked by John Hopkins Doctor – WSJ: COVID Came from Lab Leak in Wuhan (China) Says Energy Dept. – AUDIT: Fauci & NIH List of Failures with Coronavirus Wuhan Grants – COVID-19: Origin and Who Benefited the Most (and Report from Director of National Intelligence)

TIMELINE: How Team Fauci Tried to Suppress the Wuhan Lab Leak Theory (Video: 1/25/2022)

COVID ORIGINS & FAUCI’s EMAILS Internal Documents Reveal Wuhan Lab Origins were Suppressed by Team Fauci In January 2022, Bret Baier provided a timeline (starting in January 2020) of internal emails showing how scientists and U.S. government officials tried to control the information about the coronavirus origins. Via YouTube: Other video link via Fox News. RUSH TRANSCRIPT: BAIER: Fresh questions are being raised about what American scientists and federal health officials knew about how and where the Coronavirus originated and whether they tried to suppress conflicting evidence. It’s not a mere abstract second-guessing. Understanding the origins was key then and remains so. To deal with the virus that has proven stubbornly persistent. Tonight what we learned of the evolving U.S government response. January 2020, the world first learns that patients in Wuhan, China are suffering serious complications from an unknown virus. And we soon realize infections from a novel coronavirus are fueling a fast-spreading global pandemic. By mid-month the first U.S. case of COVID is reported in Washington state. Health experts conclude the outbreak is due to human-to-human transmission. Federal officials – scrambling to contain its spread – offer mixed messages. [January 28, 2020] ALEX AZAR (HHS Secretary): We are urging China more cooperation and transparency are the most important steps you can take toward a more effective response. [January 24, 2020] FAUCI (National Institute of Health (NIH)): It’s really a big difference with the Chinese this time now they look like they are being quite transparent and cooperative with us. BAIER: But did such a deadly virus emerge, so swiftly, so suddenly from a central Chinese province. New internal communications from the National Institute of Health obtained by Fox News show in the earliest days of the crisis, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of Agency’s Infectious Diseases Institute is warned COVID may have leaked from a Chinese government-run lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology. January 27th, [2020,] Fauci is told the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases [NIH] has been indirectly funding the Wuhan lab through EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based scientific nonprofit that had been working with novel coronaviruses. January 31st, Dr. Kristian Andersen, a noted virologist at the Scripps Lab privately tells Fauci that after discussions with his colleagues, some of COVID-19’s features, potentially look engineered and: “The genome is inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.” Meaning, the virus may have been genetically manipulated. Fauci reacts immediately and organizes an all-hands-on-deck conference call with colleagues. He tells the deputy director of the agency, Dr. Hugh Auchincloss of the urgency: “It is essential that we speak this AM. Keep your cell phone on… Read this paper as well as the email that I will forward to you now. You will have tasks today that must be done.” Later that day, Auchincloss confirms a study into experiments with the novel Coronavirus funded through the NIAID may not have gone through proper biosafety review and oversight. He tells Fauci: Their staff “try to determine if we have any distant ties to this work abroad.” Hours later, Fauci convenes a conference call with a dozen worldwide virologists. Notes of that hastily convened meeting obtained by Fox News reveals suspicions of a Wuhan lab leak are suppressed over concerns that public revelations of Chinese government involvement would do, “great potential harm to science and international harmony.” [wrote Dr. Francis Collins, NIH Director] “Further debate about such accusations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.” [wrote Ron Fouchier, Erasmus MC Department of Viroscience] But some immunologists are not convinced. Dr. Michael Farzan [Scripps Research] is quoted as saying: “I think it becomes a question of how do you put all this together, whether you believe in this series of coincidences, what you know of the lab in Wuhan, how much could be in nature – accidental release of natural event? I am 70:30 or 60:40.” Another scientist at the meeting, Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane University is more adamant: “I really can’t think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat virus or one very similar to it to nCoV where you insert exactly 4 amino acids 12 nucleotide that all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function. That, and you don’t change any other amino acid in S2? I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature… Of course, in the lab it would be easy to generate the perfect 12 base insert that you wanted.” BAIER: Fauci and others pointed at evidence that the virus first originated in a seafood and wild market in Wuhan, but any scientific consensus is complicated by the market being shut down and scrubbed clean by Chinese authorities with crucial evidence destroyed or hidden from international scrutiny. Outside access to the lab is also restricted. Dr. Garry later says a consensus is reached for drafting a report: “1. Don’t try to write a paper at all – it’s unnecessary; or, 2. if you do write it[,] don’t mention a lab origin as that will just add fuel to the conspiracists.” On that call, Fauci and director Collins are again told about separate State Department warnings about lax safety protocols inside the Wuhan lab. It’s unclear whether those warnings were expressed to White House officials. Nevertheless, despite the conflicting evidence presented by the virologists at that meeting, Collins seems convinced: “I am coming around to the view that a natural origin is more likely. But I share your view that a swift convening of experts in a confidence inspiring framework (WHO seems really the only option) is needed, or the voices of conspiracy will quickly dominate.” Just four days later [February 4, 2020], five American, British and Australian researchers who are all on that Fauci conference call, author preliminary findings that abandon their earlier private beliefs that COVID was likely the result of a laboratory leak. It’s unclear what new evidence prompted such a drastic 180. But private communications show the various drafts of their report are sent to Fauci and Collins for editing and approval. The records do not reveal if they, in fact, edited the new version. February 16th, the first public draft is published online. [‘The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2’ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9%5D Weeks later a final version of that report is posted. Again, a total reversal of what those virologists wrote in private emails earlier. March 17th, in Nature Medicine: “Our analysis clearly shows that COVID is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.” But that was not enough to tamp down what multiple sources inside and outside government believed, that the Wuhan lab was, indeed, the COVID ground zero. [April 15, 2020] [Bret Baier reported:] “Multiple sources say this may be the costliest government cover-up of all time by China… There is a growing belief that the COVID-19 virus originated in the Wuhan lab, not as a bioweapon but as China’s effort to find and deal with viruses to show the world China was as good as or better than the U.S. on that front.” [April 15, 2020] Later that day President Trump is asked about our reporting. [Trump said:] “More and more we are hearing the story. We are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation that happened.” The next day April 16th a frustrated Collins emails Fauci, “Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy.” Collins’ email includes a link to our “Special Report” and FoxNews.com reporting. A day later, Fauci replies: “I would not do anything about this right now. It is a shiny object that will go away in times [sic].” But hours after that from the White House press briefing room, Dr. Fauci publicly endorses the animal market theory: “The mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.” More than a month later, we now learn doctors Drs. Kristian Andersen and Robert Garry, two of the authors of that scientific report who were in close contact with Dr. Fauci are awarded a nearly $9 million research grant from Fauci’s agency. A month after that Dr. Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, the group that did the original U.S.-funded experiments with the Chinese at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, received a $7.5 million grant over 5 years from Dr. Fauci. [May 26, 2021] President Biden a year later tasks the U.S. Intelligence community to probe the COVID origins, but its August report was inconclusive due in large part to China’s unwillingness to assist with the investigation. As the lab leak theory gains more scientific traction around the world, Dr. Collins publicly says he’s at least open to that possibility. [August 12, 2021] BAIER: You clarify that you thought it was not a weaponized thing from the Chinese but that it may have been a lab accident. It seems more and more pointing that way. Are you confident saying that …? DR. COLLINS (NIH Director): You know, I don’t think I have any more new information to be able to tip the balance. Certainly possible that this was somehow understudied in the lab even though it was not human-engineered from scratch. I’m quite confident of that. [December 19, 2021 ] But months later in his last interview before leaving NIH last month, Collins tells Fox News he stands by the natural origins theory: “We still don’t know. There is no evidence really to say. Most of the scientific community, myself included, think that is a possibility but far more likely this was a natural way in which a virus left a bat maybe traveled through some other species and got to humans and there was no lab leak involved. We won’t know until China decides to open up about this which they have not done and shame on them for that. BAIER: Fauci says Chinese cooperation should be the goal. [June 3, 2021] FAUCI: “Obviously, you want openness and cooperation. One of the ways you can get it don’t be accusatory…The accusatory part about it is only going to get them to pull back even more. BAIER: And that is what has so frustrated scientists and held professionals inside and out of government as they have tried to cope with an exploding lethal pandemic for more than 2 years with incomplete or inaccurate facts. [June 29, 2021] “Whether it was engineered or not, if we would have known earlier and there wasn’t a cover-up, we could have saved lives.” BAIER: Dr. Robert Garry, who was on that February 2020 conference call with Dr. Fauci, tells The Intercept news organization he changed his mind on the COVID origins based on new information he and his colleagues received and that “no one was trying to mislead the public.” We should note China continues to deny its Wuhan lab was the COVID source, but last July refused cooperation with a second stage of an international probe into the pandemic’s origins. U.S. lawmakers want more answers too with ranking members of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. Republicans in recent days asking president Biden’s HHS secretary for greater access to Dr. Fauci and NIH emails and notes from the earliest days of the pandemic and they want to interview Fauci himself. They say the current administration continues to hide the truth. We provided our story to Dr. Fauci’s people and NIH. As of airing tonight, we have not heard a response.

RELATED – PROOF: COVID-19 Looks Engineered (Email to Fauci, 1/31/2020: Image & Transcript) – LIST: COVID Myths Debunked by John Hopkins Doctor – WSJ: COVID Came from Lab Leak in Wuhan (China) Says Energy Dept. – AUDIT: Fauci & NIH List of Failures with Coronavirus Wuhan Grants – COVID-19: Origin and Who Benefited the Most (and Report from Director of National Intelligence)

PROOF: COVID-19 Looks Engineered (Email to Fauci, 1/31/2020: Image & Transcript)

ORIGIN OF COVID-19: “Looks Engineered” January 31, 2020: Virologist informs Fauci that COVID-19 virus may have been genetically manipulated. PROOF: Unredacted emails obtained by BuzzFeed News and The Intercept show that on January 31, 2020, virologist Dr. Kristian Andersen wrote to NIH/NIAID Anthony Fauci to inform him that “that some of the features [of coronavirus] (potentially) look engineered” and “the genome is inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.” In other words, COVID-19 virus may have been genetically manipulated in a lab and not from natural evolution (from animal to human). Image of Andersen’s email to Fauci (January 31, 2020) Source: Fauci’s emails (Page 3187) (Uploaded by Jason Leopold of BuzzFeed News)

Rush Transcript: [Emphasis added] From: Kristian G. Andersen Sent: Friday, January 31, 2020 10:32 PM To: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] Cc: Jeremy Farrar Subject: Re: FW: Science: Mining coronavirus genomes for clues to the outbreak’s origins Hi Tony, Thanks for sharing. Yes, I saw this earlier today and both Eddie and myself are actually quoted in it. It’s a great article, but the problem is that our phylogenetic analyses aren’t able to answer whether the sequences are unusual at individual residues, except if they are completely off. On a phylogenetic tree the virus looks totally normal and the close clustering with bats suggest that bats serve as the reservoir. The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered. We have a good team lined up to look very critically at this, so we should know much more at the end of the weekend. I should mention that after discussions earlier today, Eddie, Bob, Mike, and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory. But we have to look at this much more closely and there are still further analyses to be done, so those opinions could still change. Best, Kristian

SOURCES: Primary Source: – Fauci’s emails (Page 3187) NOTE: Fauci’s emails (3,234 pages) were obtained by BuzzFeed News through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. Read this batch of Fauci’s emails here: DocumentCloud | PDF | Archive Report: – TheIntercept.com: Report: Evolution of a Theory – Unredacted NIH Emails Show Efforts to Rule Out Lab Origin of Covid. By Jimmy Tobbias, January 19, 2023 (Archive)

LIST: COVID Myths Debunked by John Hopkins Doctor

John Hopkins University professor and surgeon Marty Makary wrote this op-ed: 10 myths told by COVID experts — and now debunked (2/27/2023) We added links to studies and videos to some of the myths.

NATURAL IMMUNITY MYTH: Natural immunity offers little protection compared to vaccinated immunity FACT: A Lancet review of 65 major studies in 19 countries found: Natural immunity [prior COVID infection] was at least or more effective than 2 vaccine doses.

MASKS MYTH: Masks prevent COVID transmission FACT: Cochran review of 78 randomized studies found: Wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness/COVID-like illness. Link to the study and summary: Masks Don’t Stop COVID Spread: Study of 78 Randomized Controlled Trials. Randomized studies is “the greatest strength of the review! Randomized studies are considered the gold standard of medical evidence,” wrote Dr. Makary. “We had a Cochrane Review – that is the ultimate authority of high evidence in medicine. They reviewed all the studies, they found it had no impact on transmission probably because it’s so highly contagious and, when you have a mask on, the size of the virus is smaller than the size of the mask, and you breathe around the mask, so the virus is inevitable regardless,” Dr. Makary told Brian Kilmeade.

MYOCARDITIS MYTH: Myocarditis from the vaccine is less common than from the infection FACT: From JAMA Cardiology study: “[M]yocarditis [inflammation of the heart muscle] is six to 28 times more common after the COVID vaccine than after the infection among 16- to 24-year-old males,” wrote Dr. Makary. Dr. Makary retweeted details provided by epidemiologist Tracy Høeg re: JAMA study: This is the Nordic @JAMACardio study & my calculation👇he was referring to that @MartyMakary shared. It was for the pfizer moderna combo in 16-24 yo males (all details are in the quoted thread including calculations for girls)https://t.co/CfwML8aBOe — Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) February 18, 2023 This is the Nordic @JAMACardio study & my calculation👇he was referring to that @MartyMakary shared. It was for the pfizer moderna combo in 16-24 yo males (all details are in the quoted thread including calculations for girls) JAMA Study: SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination and Myocarditis in a Nordic Cohort Study of 23 Million Residents (4/20/2022)

COVID CAME FROM CHINA’S WUHAN LAB MYTH: COVID originating from the Wuhan lab is a conspiracy theory FACTS: – Dr. Makary tweeted: In Jan 2020, Top U.S. virologists Drs. Farzan and Geary told Drs. Fauci & Collins that they believed Covid came from a lab leak, documented in this EXCELLENT @BretBaier investigation: https://t.co/G2eNvi0Eta Embarrassing how Fauci & Collins worked around the Obama-instituted… https://t.co/LoyXQ6RgoW — Marty Makary MD, MPH (@MartyMakary) March 1, 2023 In Jan 2020, Top U.S. virologists Drs. Farzan and Geary told Drs. Fauci & Collins that they believed Covid came from a lab leak, documented in this EXCELLENT @BretBaier investigation: https://foxnews.com/video/6293658048001 Embarrassing how Fauci & Collins worked around the Obama-instituted moratorium on funding gain-of-function research. China had a lab leak in 1977 that resulted in many lives lost from an influenza virus. Why did anyone think it couldn’t happen again? Two Leading Virologists Appear to Have Been Bought off to Shut Up About Lab Leak Theory Dr. @MartyMakary: “Two leading virologists … told Dr. Fauci on his emergency call in January of 2020 when he was scrambling soon after learning that the NIH was funding the lab. They both said that it was likely from the lab. Both scientists changed their tunes days later in the media. And then both scientists received $9 million subsequent in funding from the NIH.” – Watch: Fox News’ Bret Baier investigation: COVID Origins Timeline (1/25/2022) According to the timeline of events laid out by Baier, Fauci was told on January 27, 2020 that his NIAID had been indirectly funding the Wuhan lab through EcoHealth– a US-based scientific non-profit that had been working with novel coronaviruses. On January 31, Dr. Kristian Andersen, a noted virologist at the Scripps Lab, privately told Fauci that after discussion with his colleagues some of COVID-19’s features look possibly engineered and the “genome is inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.” Andersen added that the situation needed to be looked at more closely, at which point Fauci organized an all hands on deck conference call with colleagues where he was told that risky experiments with the novel coronavirus may not have gone through proper biosafety review and oversight. – WSJ: COVID Came from Lab Leak in Wuhan (China) Says Energy Dept.

Dr. Makary also debunks these myths/lies: – School closures reduce COVID transmission – Young people benefit from a vaccine booster – Vaccine mandates increased vaccination rates – It was important to get the second vaccine dose 3 or 4 weeks after the first dose – Data on the bivalent vaccine is ‘crystal clear’ – One in five people get long COVID Read the full article here.

SOURCES – Dr. Makary’s op-ed on the New York Post (2/27/2023): 10 myths told by COVID experts — and now debunked – Dr. Makary with Tucker Carlson (2/28/2022): Video: ‘The data has caught up with all of the COVID lies: Dr. Marty Makary’ – Dr. Makary with Brian Kilmeade (3/1/2023): Video | Report: Dr. Makary debunks 5 popular COVID myths: Fauci, CDC ‘were wrong on so many things’

COVID Infection Protects Like Two Vaccine Doses: Review of 65 Studies (2/16/2023)

A review of 65 studies from 19 countries confirmed COVID natural immunity: Prior COVID infection is at least equivalent if not greater than that provided by two-dose mRNA vaccines. The review was published by the Lancet Journal on Feb. 16, 2023.

Study Findings: [Emphasis added] We identified a total of 65 studies from 19 different countries. Our meta-analyses showed that protection from past infection and any symptomatic disease was high for ancestral [original], alpha, beta, and delta variants, but was substantially lower for the omicron BA.1 variant. Pooled effectiveness against re-infection by the omicron BA.1 variant was 45·3% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 17·3–76·1) and 44·0% (26·5–65·0) against omicron BA.1 symptomatic disease. Mean pooled effectiveness was greater than 78% against severe disease (hospitalisation and death) for all variants, including omicron BA.1. Protection from re-infection from ancestral, alpha, and delta variants declined over time but remained at 78·6% (49·8–93·6) at 40 weeks [10 months]. Protection against re-infection by the omicron BA.1 variant declined more rapidly and was estimated at 36·1% (24·4–51·3) at 40 weeks. On the other hand, protection against severe disease remained high for all variants, with 90·2% (69·7–97·5) for ancestral, alpha, and delta variants, and 88·9% (84·7–90·9) for omicron BA.1 at 40 weeks. Our findings show that immunity from COVID-19 infection confers substantial protection against infection from pre-omicron variants. By comparison, protection against re-infection from the omicron BA.1 variant was substantially reduced and wanes rapidly over time. Protection against severe disease, although based on scarce data, was maintained at a relatively high level up to 1 year after the initial infection for all variants. Our analysis suggests that the level of protection from past infection by variant and over time is at least equivalent if not greater than that provided by two-dose mRNA vaccines. Read the Study: Title: ‘Past SARS-CoV-2 infection protection against re-infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis‘ (Archive | PDF) Done By: The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is “an independent global health research center at the University of Washington.” (HealthData.org) Published By: The Lancet Journal Date: February 16, 2023 Objective of the Study: “The objective of this study is to systematically synthesise all available studies to estimate protection from past infection by variant, and where data allow, by time since infection.” About the Study “We identified 65 studies from 19 different countries (Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, France, India, Italy, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Qatar, Scotland, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA[.]” COVID Total Deaths & Infections (Worldwide) “As of June 1, 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic had caused an estimated 17·2 million total deaths (6·88 million reported deaths), and an estimated 7·63 billion total infections and re-infections.” [Footnote 1 links to a study published in March 2022 explaining the global death toll due to the Chinese Coronavirus: Estimating excess mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic analysis of COVID-19-related mortality, 2020-21: Although reported COVID-19 deaths between Jan 1, 2020, and Dec 31, 2021, totalled 5·94 million worldwide, we estimate that 18·2 million (95% uncertainty interval 17·1–19·6) people died worldwide because of the COVID-19 pandemic (as measured by excess mortality) over that period. SUMMARIES – Dr. John Campbell: Other video source: Rumble – AFB via Breitbart: – “The protection against Covid-19 from being previously infected lasts at least as long as that offered by vaccination, one of the largest studies conducted on the subject said on Friday.” – “Ten months after getting Covid, people still had an 88 percent lower risk of reinfection, hospitalisation and death, according to the study published in the Lancet journal.” – “That makes this natural immunity “at least as durable, if not more so” than two doses of Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccines, the study said.” – Fox News also added: – “Protection from reinfection was highest for the ancestral (original) strain of COVID-19 and the alpha, beta and delta variants, remaining at more than 78% after 40 weeks.” – “Protection was lower for the omicron BA.1 variant, which dropped to 36.1% in that same time frame.” – “When it comes to severe disease (hospitalization or death), protection was high across all variants, averaging 78% or higher for ancestral, alpha, beta, delta and omicron BA.1 at 40 weeks after infection.” – “The level of protection declined over time for all variants, but it dipped fastest for the omicron BA.1 variant.” REVIEW FUNDED BY BILL GATES’ FOUNDATION Funding for the study was provided by: “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, J Stanton, T Gillespie, and J and E Nordstrom.” Role of the funding source: “The funders of the study had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or the writing of the report.”

RELATED – WSJ: COVID Came from Lab Leak in Wuhan (China) Says Energy Dept. – Masks Don’t Stop COVID Spread: Study of 78 Randomized Controlled Trials (1/30/2023) – AUDIT: Fauci & NIH List of Failures with Coronavirus Wuhan Grants