Beijing: Responding the World Health Organization’s statement of August 12, 2021 on advancing the next series of studies to find the origins of SARS-CoV-2, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said today that Beijing had taken the note of the statement.
Chunying referred to the points made in the statement that the next-phase studies should be built on the first phase of studies and implement the recommendations outlined in the WHO-China joint study report; and the search for the origins of SARS-CoV-2 should be based on science, rather than be an exercise in finger-pointing or political point-scoring. “These views should be followed through in relevant work of the WHO,” she said.
On China’s claims that COVID-19 in fact originated in the US, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson disclosed that last Friday, Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu chaired a briefing on COVID-19 origins tracing for diplomatic envoys in China. Held both online and offline, the briefing was attended by more than 160 diplomatic envoys and representatives of international organizations in China, she informed. Vice Foreign Minister Ma elaborated on China’s position, propositions and progress on origins tracing, stressing that China has all along supported and will continue to take part in science-based origins tracing efforts but firmly opposes politicizing origins tracing.
Also read: WHO hopes for continuity from previous missions to China to trace SARS-2 origins
Ma had referred to a report by Professor Ralph Baric of the school-run media of the University of North Carolina, who he claimed had been tracking coronaviruses for decades and working on medications to treat coronavirus-caused infections. Ma had claimed that according to the MIT Technology Review, Baric had acquired a technique called “reverse genetics” with which he could modify coronaviruses or make them more potent. With the support of this technique, Baric can not only cultivate a living virus based on the gene fragments of the coronaviruses, but also modify the genes of the coronaviruses and create new ones.
China claimed that in 2003, a published paper of which Baric was a co-author showcased the power of this technique. In the research, scientists successfully resurrected a SARS virus. Later Baric and others applied for a patent for this achievement, which was approved in 2007, with the patent code US7279327B2.
“This unique technique made Baric the top expert on coronaviruses in the US. He then began collecting samples of various coronaviruses around the world for research. In 2013, when the team of Shi Zhengli, a Chinese scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, detected the genome of a new coronavirus from a bat cave in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province, Baric approached her, hoping to obtain the genetic data for research. Shi generously shared her findings with Baric. With his virus modification technique, Baric and his team created in his laboratory in the US a new coronavirus that can infect humans. In this research, the modification and the mice infection experiment were both conducted in the University of North Carolina. The constructed chimeric virus was not provided to Shi Zhengli’s team. The research result was published in the “Nature Medicine” journal in 2015.”
China further claimed it was “worth noticing” that although many scientists around the world said that artificially modified viruses may leave traces, Baric said in an interview with an Italian media outlet in September 2020 that “it is possible to engineer a virus without leaving a trace.”
Baric, China claimed, had close contact with the two institutes that engage in research involving high-risk viruses and coronaviruses at Fort Detrick, the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), and the Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick (IRF-Frederick), a research facility of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases within the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
China claimed bother USAMRIID and IRF-Frederick have poor laboratory safety records. According the Ma, an open material from Frederick News-Post in 2014 showed that multiple security incidents happened at IRF-Frederick in 2014 alone, and many of them involve such high-risk coronaviruses as MERS. In the meantime, lab security issues are also reported in labs of lower security levels of this facility. According to a report in July 2016 by the WKYC,a local media affiliated to the NBC, the IRF-Frederick lab saw a security incident involving Ebola back in 2015.
“It is known to many that in the fall of 2019, before the outbreak of COVID-19, USAMRIID’s research was temporarily shut down by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) due to severe security incidents,”Ma claimed, adding that Baric’s lab in North Carolina also had many security issues, and annual report of the University of North Carolina and American media had specific reports on that.
China further claimed a mysterious and large-scale EVALI outbreak happened in 2019 before COVID-19, and articles in mainstream international journals and media, such as the Lancet, show that the disease was very similar to COVID-19.
“Its worth noticing that after studying 250 chest CT scans and clinical information from 142 EVALI patients selected from some 60 related studies that have been published, some leading Chinese experts who once fought the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan found that 16 patients were part of a viral infection chain, which indicates that they could have had COVID-19. Five of the cases were determined as ‘moderately suspicious’, who had relatively complete clinical symptom and treatment information. In 12 of the 16 EVALI patients, symptoms started before 2020.”
Based on Ma’s presentation, Chunying said one could at least draw two conclusions:
First, Baric and his dangerous coronavirus modification techniques are being widely used in research programs of US official and military labs in USAMRIID and IRF-Frederick at Fort Detrick.
Second, USAMRIID and IRF-Frederick, the two institutions that use these dangerous virus techniques, as well as Baric’s lab in North Carolina all have poor security records and they directly involve BSL-4 labs where the most dangerous virus researches are conducted. In an interview with Italian media in September 2019, Baric said that he can artificially construct a virus indistinguishable from a natural one.
If the US is obsessed with the “lab leak” theory, then it should invite international experts to conduct origins research in the US twice in an above-board manner just like China did. If so, we will naturally have the conclusions, Chunying said. She further charged that many comments on social media in the US posted in the first half of 2020, when the coronavirus started to break out in that country, indicated that nearly more than 200 people in the US or countries having close ties with the US said people they knew or they themselves had suspected infection of novel coronavirus as early as in November 2019, with COVID-like symptoms.
Besides, she alleged that a Washington Post reporter having close ties with US intelligence agency said in an article published in June this year that the Congress questioned whether COVID-19 was already spreading at the Wuhan Military World Games in October 2019, because some of the Western athletes said they later got sick with COVID-19-like symptoms. “There are also reports in the UK that some of the French athletes who attended the Wuhan Military World Games said they had strange illness. So the cases of the five Americans who went to the games are crucial clues,” she said.
“In the face of these facts and clues, those who really care about the origins of the virus will support a thorough investigation of the truth based on facts in a scientific and rational manner, without letting go of any clues. But it is very confusing that US officials and media have remained usually silent on all those doubts and questions, ignored the appeal of more than 25 million Chinese for a probe into labs at Fort Detrick, and played dumb to increasing calls from the international community for origins tracing in multiple places around the world. Instead, it has kept targeting at China and been fabricating various rumors and lies to attack and smear China without any factual basis. They even openly used intelligence agencies to carry out investigations against China with presumption of guilt,” Chunying said.
“Such cover-up tactic just reminds us of the satellite images mentioned by this reporter that show obvious trace of buildings moved and shifted at Fort Detrick from March 2020 to August 2021,” Chunying said. She added that it also reminded of an article published in Vanity Fair on June 3 this year, which said that former acting assistant secretary of the State Department claimed that their staff warned leaders within his bureau “not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19” because it would “‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.” It begs the question: What is the US hiding? she said.
Chunying also referred to August 13 briefing of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs briefing on COVID-19 origins tracing for diplomatic envoys in China to give a comprehensive elaboration on China’s position, propositions and the latest work on origins tracing. At the briefing, Dr. Yuan Zhiming, Director of the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, had responded to the “lab leak” theory by stressing that the allegation that SARS-CoV-2 was created by or leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was a “sheer fabrication out of nothing”. Dr. Zhiming had claimed that it contravened facts and consensus of scholars.
Emphasising that WHO was led by member states, Chunying said the origins tracing was an important matter that must also be led by member states. “The WHO Secretariat should act on the WHA resolution, conduct thorough consultation with member states on the global origin-tracing work plan, including the follow-up mechanism, and fully respect the views of member states,” she said. Very importantly, she said, the plan for origin-tracing involving a particular country must be decided through consultation with the country concerned, as it provides the basis for effective cooperation to be conducted.
The WHO-China joint study report on the origins of COVID-19 was produced in full compliance with WHO procedures and with scientific methods, she emphasised. “It has proven to be a valuable and authoritative report that can stand the scrutiny of science and history. The report should be the foundation and guidance for global origins tracing. Any attempt to overturn or distort the conclusions of the report is political manipulation and disrespect to science and scientists around the world,” she claimed.
– global bihari bureau
