Thought of the Day - August 24 2021 - USofA Origin Report

Back in May, Biden asked for a report, in 90 days, from the US Intelligence Agencies on the origin of SARS-CoV-2. This report should also consider the possibility of a lab leak ( Thought of the Day - July 21 2021 - Where Did It Come From? ). The 90 days has now elapsed, without the report being delivered - there is a rumour that it will be provided the next week. In the meantime a report from the US House Foreign Affairs Committee was released at the beginning of August.

As well as some US-China sabre rattling, the report comes to the following conclusions:

• the preponderance of evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) laboratory sometime prior to September 12, 2019. The evidence for this includes:

  • the sudden removal of the WIV’s virus and sample database in the middle of the night on September 12, 2019, without explanation;

  • safety concerns expressed by top Chinese scientists in 2019 and the unusually scheduled maintenance at the WIV;

  • satellite imagery of Wuhan in September and October 2019 shows a significant uptick in the number of people at local hospitals surrounding the WIV’s headquarters, coupled with an unusually high number of patients with symptoms similar to COVID-19.

• the virus (or the viral sequence that was genetically manipulated) was likely collected from a cave in China's Yunnan province, between 2012 and 2015.

• researchers at the WIV, officials within the CCP, and American citizens directly engaged in efforts to obfuscate information related to the origins of the virus and to suppress public debate of a possible lab leak.

Also quoted in the report was the Financial Post interview with a member of the Canadian Armed Forces who participated in the Military games in October 2019. He was quoted as saying:

"This was a city of 15 million people that was in lockdown. It was strange, but we were told this was to make it easy for the Games’ participants to get around. [I got] very sick 12 days after I arrived, with fever, chills, vomiting, insomnia.… On our flight to come home, 60 Canadian athletes on the flight were put in isolation [at the back of the plane] for the 12-hour flight. We were sick with symptoms ranging from coughs to diarrhea and in between."

The service member also revealed his family members also became ill as his symptoms increased. Similar claims about 'COVID-19 like' symptoms have been made by athletes from Germany, France, Italy, and Sweden.

One of this report's recommendations is that Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance the organization that arranged US funding to China's WIV, and one of the people highlighted as "obfuscating and suppressing", should be summoned before Congress.

Will be really interesting to see if there are similar conclusions and recommendations in the Biden report.

Cheers

Cliff