"We now believe it's time to completely dismiss the wet market as the source," said the report. "We also believe the preponderance of the evidence proves the virus did leak from the WIV and that it did so sometime before September 12, 2019."

The report cited what it called new and under-reported information about safety protocols at the lab, including a July 2019 request for a $1.5 million overhaul of a hazardous waste treatment system for the facility, which was less than two years old.

thenewstalkers

Video

Months ahead of the COVID-19 outbreak , the Wuhan National Biosafety Lab requested bids for major renovations to air safety and waste treatment systems in research facilities that had been operational for less than 2 years, according to a new congressional report on the pandemic’s origins , obtained by Fox News. 

"Such a significant renovation so soon after the facility began operation appears unusual," said the report from the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Republican staff.  The projects for air disinfection, hazardous waste and central air conditioning systems "all raise questions about how well these systems were functioning in the months prior to the outbreak of COVID-19." 

The true reason for the procurement posting is unclear, as is when or if the work was even initiated.  It adds another circumstantial element to the controversial argument that the pandemic began in a Wuhan lab, including suspicious behavior and obfuscation from China’s government and signs the pandemic began months before previously assumed. 

Only weeks ahead of President Biden ’s deadline for the intelligence community’s review into the origins of the pandemic, Republicans will release their most detailed case yet arguing that researchers in Wuhan could have genetically manipulated the virus and that "the preponderance of evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory ." 

Staff for Rep. Michael McCaul, R- Texas , the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, will include this information as an addendum to their September report.   

Over the past several months, more public health experts, scientists and government officials have called for an investigation into a possible lab leak , along with examinations into whether the virus began naturally.  They’ve called for a thorough, independent investigation, in China, into the origins of the pandemic, though the Chinese Communist Party has denied access. 

Without cooperation from China’s government, there is significant skepticism any of the handful of U.S. government investigations will provide a concrete narrative into how the pandemic originated.  Beyond the Biden administration’s ongoing review, the State Department , under the previous administration, published a declassified report days before leaving office.  At the time, it offered the most detailed case yet that the coronavirus had leaked from a lab. 

Video

Citing the ongoing intelligence community review, Democratic leaders have shown little interest in congressional investigations, leaving Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs and Energy and Commerce Committees to conduct their own reviews.  Democrats control Congress, and its committees, and Republicans alone, therefore, have no subpoena power. 

Using project announcements published on the Chinese government’s procurement website, along with other open-sourced data, interviews with former administration officials and scientists, research papers and international press reports, Republicans on the Foreign Affairs Committee have built their argument on a timeline that claims the virus escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology "sometime prior to September 12, 2019." 

On that day, the Wuhan University, less than a mile from the WIV’s headquarters, issued a notice for laboratory inspections.  Hours later, the WIV’s viral sequence database disappeared from the internet. Later that evening, the institute published an announcement for bids for "security services" at the lab "to include gatekeepers, guards, video surveillance, security patrols, and people to handle the ‘registration and reception of foreign personnel,’" according to the report. 

Citing testimony from "a former senior U.S. official," the report claims Major General Chen Wei , an expert in biology and chemical weapon defenses, took control of the Wuhan Institute’s biosafety level-4 lab in late 2019.  That timing demonstrates the Chinese Communist Party "was concerned about the activity happening there as news of the virus was spreading," according to the report.  "If she took control in 2019, it would mean the CCP knew about the virus earlier, and that the outbreak began earlier." 

Dr. Shi Zhengli, known as the Wuhan Institute 'Bat Lady' reportedly worked with military officials at the lab, despite denying it.  (APTN)

Satellite imagery of Wuhan in September and October 2019 showed a significant increase in hospital visits and internet searches for COVID-19 symptoms .  The report also claims that mapping data suggesting researchers at the lab likely used the Wuhan shuttle bus and city metro for their daily work commute, spreading the virus throughout the city. 

The committee also used an interview in Bloomberg with Dr. Danielle Anderson, an Australian virologist, to establish some of the lab’s commuting patterns.  Anderson is the only foreign scientist to have undertaken research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s BSL-4 lab, according to Bloomberg .  She also told the publication that entering and exiting the facility was carefully choreographed, and included requirements to take precisely timed chemical and personal showers.   

In that June interview, Dr. Anderson maintained she knew of no one at the Wuhan institute who was ill towards the end of 2019 and said she believes the virus most likely came from a natural source . 

Around that time, the Republican researchers said there’s evidence the virus was spreading throughout central Wuhan, just ahead of the World Military Games which, "became an international vector, spreading the virus to multiple continents around the world." 

In October, Wuhan hosted the 2019 Military World Games, which drew thousands of military personnel to compete in Olympic-style events.  International press reports cite athletes claiming events were conducted without fans and that Wuhan was a "ghost town."  Athletes from several countries complained of COVID-like symptoms and four countries that sent athletes have confirmed the presence of COVID-19 in November and December of 2019, before the outbreak became public, according to the report. 

The committee staff also build their argument on the possibility viruses can be genetically modified without leaving evidence of manipulation.  They cite an Italian publication’s interview with Dr. Ralph Baric, who studies coronaviruses at the University of North Carolina and collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in which he claimed that scientists can engineer a virus "without leaving any trace. Dr. Baric told the MIT Technology Review that "We never created a supervirus." 

Republican staff also cite a 2017 dissertation from a doctoral student working at the WIV that claimed coronaviruses could be manipulated without leaving any trace sequences.  They said they also interviewed "scientists and current and former U.S. government officials" who questioned whether the virus developed naturally because of its highly infectious nature, lack of intermediate host discovered, and its highly efficient binding to human ACE2 receptor. 

Some scientists have pointed out it often takes years to determine the origins of naturally occurring virus.  They cite Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which was first discovered in 2003.  That same year researchers discovered the intermediate host though it took until 2017 to trace its origin to bats. 

As calls to at least investigate the lab-leak theory have gained traction internationally, Chinese government propaganda has become much more aggressive to dispel it – the latest in a pattern to obscure information about the pandemic since its onset. 

On February 27, 2020, Health Times , published an interview with Yu Chuanhua, the Vice President of the Hubei Health Statistics and Information Society, who has compiled a database of confirmed COVID-19 cases.  He cited a patient who became ill September 29 and that "There were two cases in November, and the onset time was November 14 and November 21, 2019." 

"Before the interview was published on February 27th, Yu called the reporter and tried to retract the information regarding the two sick patients in November. It is likely that this was done to comply with the China CDC gag order that was issued two days prior," according to the congressional report. 

In a January 2021 email, Dr. Shi Zheng-li, a senior scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was asked about the lab’s public database disappearance from the internet.  Shi, according to the report, had previously "given several conflicting answers" as to why the database was taken down, and responded:  "I’ll not answer any of your questions if your curiosity is based on the conspiracy of ‘man made or lab leak of SARS-CoV-2’ or some non-sense questions based on your suspicion."  

"No trust, no conversation," she said. 

foxnews

Did you bother to read this line?

 The report cited what it called new and under-reported information about safety protocols at the lab, including a July 2019 request for a $1.5 million overhaul of a hazardous waste treatment system for the facility, which was less than two years old.

In April, the top U.S. intelligence agency said it concurred with the scientific consensus that the virus was not man-made or genetically modified.

You have to wonder why the Dems show little interest in getting to truth about the origins of this virus.

What difference does it make? We know it came from China and most people probably assumed it came from a lab. I'm more concerned about ending the virus than focusing on its origins.

I think we Americans can and will walk and chew gum at the same time on this issue.  

It's better to focus on priorities. Dealing with the pandemic should be the priority. There will be plenty of time for finger pointing and whining later. 

A newly issued report from Republican lawmakers claims that there is a “preponderance of evidence” to strongly suggest that COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China rather than mutating naturally from a bat, as first suspected.

Republicans on the H ouse Foreign Affairs Committee point to evidence of a lab leak in their report along with genetic modification, and a resultant cover-up in concluding that the virus accidentally emerged from the lab.

The report states that “the preponderance of evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory sometime prior to September 12, 2019,” and “the virus, or the viral sequence that was genetically manipulated, was likely collected in a cave in Yunnan province, PRC, between 2012 and 2015.”

U.S. intelligence agencies have been tasked by President Joe Biden to report on the origins of the virus. The intelligence community has yet to submit the findings.

The report goes on to say that Wuhan lab scientists, Chinese Communist Party officials, and “potentially American citizens” all “directly engaged in efforts to obfuscate information related to the origins of the virus and to suppress public debate of a possible lab leak.”

The leader of the Republican’s China Task Force, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, previously released a report in September alleging a China cover-up that also contained a number of serious concerns regarding the Wuhan lab.

“I do think it’s more likely than not that it emerged out of the lab — most likely accidentally — for several reasons. … It was just declassified that three of the researchers were actually hospitalized in November of 2019 with flu-like symptoms consistent with COVID. That was suppressed by the Chinese Communist Party,” McCaul said told CNN’s Jake Tapper in May.

“Since that time in December, they silenced and detained the doctors who were reporting a SARS-like virus, which under international health regulations had to be reported within 24 hours. They went and destroyed lab samples,” he added.

“They wouldn’t admit it was human-to-human [transmission]. And then, working with the WHO, failed to report to the world that we had a local epidemic that was now going into a global pandemic. So time and time again, we’re seeing this cover-up,” he said.

The latest report “outlines evidence that points to the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the source of the outbreak, and outlines some of the many steps researchers at the WIV along with Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance took to cover up the research being done there.”

In addition, it “breaks down how scientific papers written by researchers at the WIV not only prove the WIV was doing dangerous genetic modification research on coronaviruses at unsafe biosafety levels, but also that WIV researchers had the ability to genetically modify coronaviruses as early as 2016 without leaving any trace of that modification.”

McCaul says he thinks the time has come to “completely dismiss” the theory that the virus emerged from a Wuhan wet market, as initially reported.

“We know gain-of-function research was happening at the WIV and we know it was being done in unsafe conditions,” he said. ‘

“We also now know the head of the Chinese CDC and the director of the WIV’s Biosafety Level-4 lab publicly expressed concerns about safety at PRC labs in the summer of 2019. It is our belief the virus leaked sometime in late August or early September 2019,” the Texas Republican added.

“When they realized what happened, Chinese Communist Party officials and scientists at the WIV began frantically covering up the leak, including taking their virus database offline in the middle of the night and requesting more than $1 million for additional security,” he continued.

“But their cover-up was too late — the virus was already spreading throughout the megacity of Wuhan. Within a month, satellite images show a significant uptick in the number of people at hospitals around the WIV with symptoms similar to COVID-19,” said McCaul, referencing data contained in the new report.

“At the same time, athletes at the Military World Games became sick with symptoms similar to COVID-19. Some of them carried the virus back to their home countries — creating one of the earliest super spreader events in the world.”

The report speculates that researchers at the lab inadvertently caught the virus and then spread it when they traveled to and from work.

The GOP lawmakers said the report “lays out ample evidence that researchers at the WIV, in conjunction with U.S. scientists and funded by both the PRC government and the U.S. government, were conducting gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the WIV.”

The conclusion is that there is “ample proof that the virus could have been genetically manipulated.”

trendingpolitics

Respirator hoses fail in deadly flu experiments

Equipment failures of air-purifying respirators potentially exposed workers to the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza during separate incidents in June and September 2014 at the USDA's Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Ga., records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show.

In the September 2014 incident, an animal caretaker in a BSL-3 lab noticed decreased airflow to their respirator and discovered that a hose had separated from its coupling. The worker was put on an antiviral medication for 10 days and told to monitor for fever, but no infection resulted, the records say.

Lab officials, in response to questions from USA TODAY, said the worker's risk of exposure was low because chickens were inside HEPA-filtered "animal isolation units" and negative-air-pressure cages that contain the virus in the cage, rather than in the larger room.

UNC has string of lost mice

Between April 2013 and September 2014, eight individual mouse escapes were reported at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Due to the inbred nature of the mice, their behavior varies wildly and the university claimed the large number of escapes was not a reflection of a failure to train personnel.

In that same 18-month period, university officials wrote that lab staff handled mice roughly 54,000 times, so the escape rate is about 0.001%.

Despite those considerations, officials with the NIH called the escapes "concerning." Several of the mice were infected with either SARS or the H1N1 flu virus.

The NIH said that "it appears the measures taken by the University of North Carolina to reduce the likelihood of these events have not been effective" and ordered an action plan to address engineering controls, training and other activities to reduce the risk of escapes.

usatoday

Yes, repeating the seed within a seed is spamming because you will not or cannot discuss anything legitimately.

If the suspicion was that the virus leaked out of a lab in , say, Poland rather than China, would we be getting this constant frenzy from the right suggesting we must immediately find out what happened?  I find that highly unlikely.  China is a right wing whipping boy , because it is partially communist, so the ire of the right goes to them like a magnet. 

How about if the virus originated in Saudi Arabia? Would Trump be ranting against Saudi Arabia on a daily basis?  Give me a break. Trump couldnt even muster up the guts to confront them on the murder of the Washington Post reporter who was beheaded and dismembered on the orders of the Saudi prince. One account suggests Trump even joked about it.  No, there would have been no Trump condemnation of Saudi Arabia if they had caused the virus. 

He picks his enemies carefully. 

Blaming China (or any other country we don't like) us the politically popular thing to do for some. I have no doubt that if a viral pandemic originated in the US, other countries would be hating on us. But regardless of where the virus originated, it would make sense to put political fingerpointing and partisanship aside and focus on eliminating the pandemic.

I agree that accountability and future prevention is important. All I'm saying is the current priority should be to fight the spread of the virus. The other steps can come after once the pandemic is under control.

Put it context Kathleen.  The Black Plaque killed 33% of the know human population = 25 million people.

This flu has only killed 5.4% of the 7.9 Billion people

The genie can't be put back in the bottle and there is no rational point to "proving" a point

other than going to war with the largest Country in the world. 

We are susceptible to world wide periodic outbreaks of diseases since history has been recorded.

mphonline

What difference does it make?

Four million deaths and that's your response?  Can't make this up. 

Well SP I am going to have to disagree with you on this one.

No problem with that.

 I think the circumstances are  different here.

Not provable in my opinion

I also think that they can pay without a war.

So you have already judged them, good to know.

They owe the world an explanation.

What you are saying is that their current explanations aren't what you want to hear.

I don't think you will ever hear what you want from the Chinese government.

Reminds one of all of the Cold War espionage and what the involved parties knew

or thought they knew.

Yes, that is my response! We all know it came from China, as I said. Does that change anything? Now the focus should be on stopping the virus so there are no more deaths. I'd say that takes immediate precedence. Do you disagree?

The Black Plaque killed 33% of the know human population = 25 million people. This flu has only killed 5.4% of the 7.9 Billion people

COVID has killed less than 4.5 million world wide so not even close to 5.4%. The flu has only been around for a year a half and it's still going and changing the Black Death was a seven year plague (I wonder if it had different strains). I wonder how many jackasses are messing with COVID using CRISPR ?

Now the focus should be on stopping the virus so there are no more deaths

Do you know what a false choice is? Because you've created the textbook example.

Figuring out the origins of the virus  will also save lives, of course.  

I think the first coming of the Bubonic plague killed 25 million, half of Europe's population.

The second bubonic plaque lasted 7 years and killed between 75 & 200 million people worldwide.

We have many advantages this time. We understand what we are dealing with, we just can't convince every

one to mask, wash hands and vaccinate.

Seems so simple...

Contrary to the belief of some of the members here, and the necessity of pointing and blaming in order to absolve their own country of any responsibility, I do NOT defend China for its original cover-up, although they provided information in time for others to act diligently, and please do not try to tell me that Trump did not delay requiring proper procedures to contain the virus, and that the mishmash of different States' requirements to follow the effective guidelines did not contribute greatly to America's losses.  Personally, as much as you would like to have your questions answered, as long as America politicizes everything in its quest to contain China, and interferes with its domestic policies, there is no way the Chinese government will ever be forthcoming.

Polio, smallpox and cholera, the many variations of SARS, keep coming back decade after decade, killing and maiming people.  Cancers.

So you think the Chinese Government is not hiding anything and telling the truth? 

I want to hear the truth. We all need to know that. 

Personally, as much as you would like to have your questions answered, as long as America politicizes everything in its quest to contain China, and interferes with its domestic policies, there is no way the Chinese government will ever be forthcoming.

Fixed it for you. You're welcome.

You did not answer my question.

No, I didn't.  It's immaterial to my experiences.

Do you think the Chinese Government is hiding anything and telling the truth?

I worked in the US Government in several capacities and was an elected official for a few years. No one ever tells the whole truth.  Everyone has an agenda be it politics or personal advancement. When attacked units behave like the police, they close ranks and stay quiet.  That should have been obvious to anyone who lived through the Cold War

( which just continues at a lesser pace, but it's still there )

The virus may not care but the families of the people that died from it might.

Loss is not specific to dying from a virus. Loss is natural. Death is unavoidable.

A asteroid you can’t stop, but carelessness can be.

Ever own a home or a car that didn't leak, settle or peel?  Remember the Challenger or Columbia disasters?

Best human engineers in the world. You can say carelessness but I won't.

Remember the UNC mice that were infected with SARS?

A mouse is going to do what a mouse does, squeeze through the space of a quarter and seek freedom.

It's his nature.

A virus seeks a host to reproduce, it's it's nature.

We humans try to control nature but we have a long way to go in that pursuit.

Just read the last sentence of my comment again.  

No, you fixed it for yourself and others who only seek to disparage what another person has posted. 

It may well be possible to stop asteroids we can detect now and in the future

Are you saying that you're in agreement with America's "Tonya Harding" method of preventing another nation from advancing?

I think Singapore's Prime Minister has a very sensible opinion concerning the present situation between the USA and China - the most recent article I posted on the Confucius group.

Well, as you know there are various opinions about what really happened, and probably, because of the lack of transparency that the CCP is known for, nobody will ever know what really happened if in fact it originated in China.  

Shouldn't the people know how much the CDC and Dr. Fauci were involved...what did they know, and when did they know it.

After all, the left has been so eager to pin the whole blame on Trumps supposed incompetence of dealing with the pandemic when the evidence says otherwise.

Shouldn't the people know how much the CDC and Dr. Fauci were involved...what did they know, and when did they know it. After all, the left has been so eager to pin the whole blame on Trumps supposed incompetence of dealing with the pandemic when the evidence says otherwise.

What the public needs to know is how the government assesses risks associated with biological and medical research funded by the government.  The public also needs to know how the government performs oversight to mitigate those risks.

In this situation it appears the government dropped a wad of cash on the table based on the promise of 'advances in scientific knowledge'.  There doesn't appear to have been any evaluation of risks involved or any oversight to ensure the work was done safely and securely.  The government provided funds but has been denied access which prohibits performing oversight.

The NIH was provided appropriations and, it appears, was motivated to 'use it or lose it'.  If the NIH doesn't spend appropriated funds then the next budget request may be reduced.  A typical mindset among government administrators is to spend money on anything to protect appropriation levels.  So, it's quite possible the risks were never evaluated and there never was any plan to perform oversight.

Good assessment.

The NIH was provided appropriations and, it appears, was motivated to 'use it or lose it'.  If the NIH doesn't spend appropriated funds then the next budget request may be reduced.  A typical mindset among government administrators is to spend money on anything to protect appropriation levels.  So, it's quite possible the risks were never evaluated and there never was any plan to perform oversight.

Correct.

When I lived on Hamilton AFB the drought was pretty severe and the locals in SanRafael and Novato watched their lawns die off and many simply converted to rocks and desert plants.Technically Marin County is mainly desert according to rainfall totals...

But the base was lush with green grass everywhere with sprinklers going off everywhere and crews cutting grass all week long.( not just on the golf course, )

The "use it or lose it" rules pervade everything in government, right down to the toilet paper inventory.  So that base literally dumped water on the ground day in and day out for years to maintain 'readiness' even after it was BRAC'dmuch to the chagrin of the locals.

I have dozens of similar examples.

Pay no attention to Drak.  He insists that there was no coup - but Nancy Pelosi is the one who came closest to a 'legitimate coup' whatever the fuck that is.

For the record, Tessylo is correct that I don't think what happened on the 6th of Jan was a coup. As far as the "legitimate coup" goes, that is a misunderstanding on her part of something I said somewhere else. I did not argue that there are legitimate coups. Although I did say that, in my opinion, what Pelosi did in contacting the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was closer to a coup than what happened on Jan 6th, I asked someone else if they were arguing for legitimate coups. 

Whether anyone should pay attention to what I say I leave to the individual. 

Where else could it have originated from?  

Do you know what a false choice is? Because you've created the textbook example.

I've offered no choice. Merely a statement of fact. Or do you disagree that stopping the virus is a priority?

Figuring out the origins of the virus  will also save lives, of course.  

That will be helpful in preventing potential future outbreaks. It does nothing to address the virus now. 

I don't know.  Nobody does for sure.  

Because blaming Trump for its effects was always and still is what matters to them. 

He was going with the advice of our new TV doctor, Anthony Fauci.

Name the country that handled Covid 19 well? Go ahead. We can all wait while you do some real research and find out the whole world was caught flat footed by this.

As for Trump letting Covid 19 get out of control- don't forget the roll Democrats had trying to downplay Covid at the start trying to make Trump look bad for travel restrictions from China and Europe.

wsj

newsweek

wibc

Never forgetting that Democrat governors and mayors put those that tested positive for Covid 19 into retirement and nursing homes that were not equipped to care for them.

bridgemi

nbcnews

detroitnews

propublica

forbes

The Biden administration has done so damn well with it./S Delta variant running out of control (of course when you have a super spreader event like the continuous surge of illegals crossing our border not being tested, not being quarantined, and being shipped all over the US- what the hell else is to be expected?); no where close to Biden's goal of getting people full immunized (maybe Democrats shouldn't have been denouncing the vaccines before they came out in order to make Trump look bad. Seems to have backfired on them; as Latinos and Blacks are lagging way behind in getting them- two of the Democrats biggest voting blocks.); and who is running the show? (The Teacher's Union, CDC, or Fauci, it sure as hell doesn't seem to be the Biden administration- which changes their directives as often as Biden forgets things.)

But Trruuummmmppppp!!!! Pathetic as always.

Democrats were willing to do anything to get rid of Trump; and now that he is gone still blame him for their continued fuck ups. They never had a plan, and they sure as hell have no answers. They are only interested in staying in power and their every action is focused on that singular thing.

Sad how some won't even attempt to open links to facts that are handed to them free of charge.

After all, isn't that how most leftists prefer to receive things?

And several of the links provided were from left of center sources.  

Name the country that handled Covid 19 well?

Taiwan 33 deaths/million population

Japan 120

South Korea 40

Vietnam 18

US 1,884 -- more than an order of magnitude worse than those above

I remember reading that Taiwan ordered mask wearing on 12/29/19. Asians have extraordinary levels of civic responsibility. Even if they hate their gov't, they still protect each other. They also began extensive testing as soon as the viral RNA was sequenced. Masks were politicized here, and testing was purposely slowed to obscure the extent of the pandemic. Of course, I'm only scratching the surface of how badly the previous administration handled the pandemic. The Lancet (one of the oldest medical journals) study by their Commission on Public Policy and Health of the Trump Administration is synopsized here: abcnews.go

If you're willing to register, you can read he original data. We were expected to handle the pandemic better than other G7 members because we had additional time, unlimited money, the best epidemiologists, and a manufacturing engine second to none. Unfortunately, we had a completely incompetent administration.

Unfortunately, we had a completely incompetent administration.

Yeah Trump was pretty bad.

All of the countries you listed have a different culture, they care about each other and listened to mask mandates.

Hell half of them wore masks because of air quality anyway.

Not here.

From Day fucking ONE it was the Gadsden flag.  Patriots refusing to surrender their rights to any government.

They would rather die than mask or vaccinate.

610,000 have.

The seeder is an anti masker and proud of it. 

The GOP is STILL resisting masking when it should be evident that it helps.

But no, they will die clinging to the Bible and their high round magazines because they think it is their God given right.

Killed by something too small to see let alone shoot.

smh.

[deleted.]  I wasn’t totally anti mask before I was vaccinated.  I voluntarily put one on indoors in mask optional stores when I couldn’t social distance and I wore on to church only so the state wouldn’t try to shut us down since it was possible to distance at 25% capacity, and to work since I worked in a school.  I got the vaccine and I have more tests but there’s a chance that the vaccine may be responsible for my heart issues and May have aggravated existing then modest neurological issues.  

I bet it won’t happen in Frederick, Hagerstown, the panhandle, and the eastern shore.  

[deleted]

So far the preponderance of evidence is a lot of could be finger pointing.

GOP lawmaker questions Dem inaction on COVID lab-leak theory: 'Do the Democrats know something we don't?

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis said the origins of COVID-19 require an aggressive investigation

Yael Halon 2 hours ago

Video

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., urged her Democratic colleagues on Monday to take a more aggressive approach in investigating the Wuhan lab-leak theory after a congressional report revealed that the Wuhan National Biosafety Lab requested bids for major renovations to air safety and waste treatment systems in research facilities just months before the COVID-19 outbreak began.

"Republicans in the subcommittee on COVID are going to continue to work with the Foreign Affairs committee to expose what we can find that make the connection that this is a leak from the lab and China is responsible," Malliotakis said on "The Story" Monday…

read more: foxnews

BREAKING NEWS:

A GQP Committee has determined that Chinese secret agents lit the wildfires in the western USA.

A GQP Committee has determined that all Chinese Christian males have had their balls cut off to prevent an increase in the number of Christians in the country. 

A GQP Committee has determined that Trump actually got 15 million votes more than Biden last November.

A GQP Committee has determined that the Coronavirus was accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab.

Watch TheNewsTalkers for more up-to-date breaking news.

There is no such thing as a GQP.  

If Xi Jinping is Winnie the Pooh, then the Republican Party is the Grand QAnon Party.

Why would a Canadian care about what Americans call the head of the worlds largest communist party?  They had to outlaw/ban the picture and the term in China because Zi was offended his own citizens called him that. 

I have a wife and she has a family and Xi Jinping is their respected leader, whom they admire.  I'm not stopping you from calling him Zi or Winnie the Pooh, I'm saying that if that's what makes you feel good and/or superior, it's your privilege, just as it's my privilege to call the Republican Party the GQP. and to call those who glorify Trump "Trump*suckers".

President Xi responds to the lab leak theory

The China virus did not originate anywhere but in a Chinese lab.  There would have been no cover up if it came from the outside of China into China.  

Did Jesus tell you that the Trumpvirus (that killed 610,000 Americans and counting) originated in a Chinese lab?  Was he speaking from a burning bush?  Or are YOU the OMNICIENT OMNIPOTENT ONE who decided that?  How come you didn't thumb-up your own comment this time?

Looks like the virus has come full circle.

theguardian

Did you read the article?  65 new cases in a country of 1.4 billion people is not headline news.

The Guardian is blocked in China, probably for good reason, so your comment means nothing to me.  However, I can guess from SP's comment that it speaks of the recurrence of some clusters of the virus in China (caused by a planeload of Russians that landed there).  I can say that in the city-state of 32 million people where I live two new cases occurred far from me and eveyone here is now being super-carefull about masking, social distancing, washing with disinfectant, and getting vaccinated.  That's how intelligent people who care about the good of others react to it. 

That's how intelligent people who care about the good of others react to it. 

It would seem we are somewhat lacking that here. But then, many Americans are clearly not intelligent.

I doubt that the Chinese people are all that caring and altruistic. It sounds more plausible that the authoritarian government mandates what individuals must do under threat of punishment

government mandates what individuals must do under threat of punishment

Like every other government in the world?

Do you wear a seat belt?  Text while you drive? Exceed the speed limit through school zones?

It may simply be air pollution in China causing the mask wearing,

but not in Vietnam where they have 0.001% of the USA death rate.

Every one of those Commies are laughing at our pigheadedness.

Typical comment by a person who has never been to China and so has no idea what life is like there, but picks and chooses his propaganda education in order to comment. 

Exactly.  They have surveillance systems there developed by our big tech that our regime can only dream of imposing upon us for now.  Big tech social media is attempting to bring the same social credit system they created to help keep the Chinese people in line with their regime here to do the same to us. Their fact checking gate keepers and related censorship are just the first step.  

The core issues concerning the Wuhan Institute of Virology involve funding and safety.

The United States government did provide public funding but is being denied access for purposes of oversight.  The WIV obviously spent the money provided by the United States government but we don't know what that money was used for.  The argument has been made that government funds were not directly provided to the WIV; the WIV was essentially a sub-contractor for a grant recipient in the US.  But that arrangement should raise concerns over the ability of the US government to perform oversight on how public funds are used.

Safety should be a major concern.  We know the Wuhan Institute of Virology was collecting and cataloging coronaviruses in bats.  And we know these bat viruses are potential human pathogens.  What we don't know are the safeguards employed to protect workers who collected the samples and performed the analysis to identify and catalog the samples.  The WIV program involved field work performed outside the laboratory.  The possibility of the COVID-19 virus escaping the lab includes that field work performed outside the lab.

As to gain-of-function research, keep in mind that the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus arose from an uncontrolled gain-of-function.  Viruses can gain function in the wild from natural mutation.  The purpose of laboratory research on gain-of-function is to control and speed the process of natural mutation found in the wild.  The virus is not genetically engineered; the virus is grown under controlled conditions that favors natural mutation that results in gain of function.  The laboratory research controls the randomness found in the wild but does not alter the natural process of mutation found in the wild.  The virus, itself, is not manipulated and is allowed to mutate naturally under controlled conditions that favors mutations that gain function.  But it's not possible to direct those natural mutations toward gaining a specific function so it's not really possible to predict or determine the risks of producing a deadly human pathogen.  Gain-of-function research is sort of a game of pandemic Russian roulette.  That's why safety protocols and oversight are very important.  And the core issues concerning the Wuhan Institute of Virology involve oversight and safety.

The possibility of the COVID-19 virus escaping the lab includes that field work performed outside the lab.

Bingo. There was anecdotal evidence of the miners collecting/cleaning or harvesting bat guano samples getting sick in 2012.

3 of the 6 died. Samples were collected at the time by the WIV. 

There was never an attempt ( what would work? ) to eradicate the virus at the source. What's the point?  Infected bats probably flew miles and miles every night in every direction until they died and were consumed by other organisms, slowly spreading the virus.

wsj

The bats more likely returned to their caves instead of flying away. The collected samples ended up in the Wuhan Lab, from which the enhanced virus eventually escaped.

Well there's your new project Greg.  Invent the ultimate virus trap and you will reap the riches

of the world and it's accolades.

/s

Severely limiting the bat population means one should invest in anti-mosquito spray and lotion manufacturing companies.

Bats and mosquitoes need to be abated and kept at limited numbers.  Both are bad disease carriers.  

The concern is that bats are a natural predator of mosquitoes, so we would have to be careful about not interfering with the circle of life.  

That’s why I said kept at limited manageable  numbers for both rather than elimination or extinction.  Eliminating one with out eliminating the other would cause imbalance.  We see that in places where there are no mountain lions or wolves around and deer populations explode.  

That's true.  Of course in your example that could mean more venison to help alleviate hunger.