Soon to be published new report will say the Chinese did it.

[Catonahottinroof]

The docs noted in the Fox report were made public by the Intercept. The Intercept is in no way a right leaning publication… so maybe, just maybe the truth will see the light of day in the mainstream press….

[dan_bgblue]

The Intercept article

[Padukacat]

The truth is often found in the words people do not say. Following logic and coincidence certainly points to the Wuhan lab and the fact that we are affiliated in some form (Fauci particularly) is worth taking a deep dive. The truth will come out and if it is China and someone affiliated with our lab like say Fauci, it will have incredible consequences.

[CitizenBBN]

The Intercept article

How is this not bringing down Fauci, the NIH, and arguably the entire Washington establishment?

We helped fund "gain of function" research to make coronaviruses WORSE at a lab we KNEW was substandard no less, in control of a hostile foreign government with basically no checks on their actions.

And the reaction is a shoulder shrug?

Not to mention Fauci committing perjury to cover it up.

[suncat05]

Yet another example of these bungholes in Washington D.C. doing things they shouldn't be doing, and then when they're found out to have done these things, nothing of any consequence or meaning happens to them.

ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY ANYWHERE FOR ANYONE THAT IS PART OF THE NEVER ENDING SWAMP!!

And yet some people wonder why many of the citizens of this country don't trust the government? Why should we, when we have things like this happen?

[dan_bgblue]

Australian author's book reveals new info to the public

[kingcat]

The closest match to the virus has now been found in Laos.

In a paper submitted to Nature, researchers from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, and from Laos have now reported finding viruses with receptor binding domains very similar to those found on SARS-CoV-2 in cave bats in North Laos.

The researchers took blood, saliva, anal feces, and urine samples from 645 bats from 46 different species found in limestone caves in North Laos, which is close to the Southwest China border.

They discovered three separate virus strains in three different species of Rhinolophus bat, commonly known as horseshoe bat. RNA sequencing revealed that these viruses were over 95% identical to SARS-CoV-2, and one, the closest virus to SARS-CoV-2 found so far, was 96.8% similar.

NEWS
24 September 2021
Correction 27 September 2021
Closest known relatives of virus behind COVID-19 found in Laos
Studies of bats in China and Laos show southeast Asia is a hotspot for potentially dangerous viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2.
Smriti Mallapaty

Download PDF
Horseshoe Bat leaving Cave. Horseshoe Bat (Rhinolophus affinis) exiting a cave at dusk, Perak, Malaysia.
A Rhinolophus bat exits a cave at dusk in Perak, Malaysia.Credit: Fletcher & Baylis/SPL

Scientists have found three viruses in bats in Laos that are more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than any known viruses. Researchers say that parts of their genetic code bolster claims that the virus behind COVID-19 has a natural origin — but their discovery also raises fears that there are numerous coronaviruses with the potential to infect people.

David Robertson, a virologist at the University of Glasgow, UK, calls the find “fascinating, and quite terrifying”.


Did the coronavirus jump from animals to people twice?
The results, which are not peer reviewed, have been posted on the preprint server Research Square1. Particularly concerning is that the new viruses contain receptor binding domains that are almost identical to that of SARS-CoV-2, and can therefore infect human cells. The receptor binding domain allows SARS-CoV-2 to attach to a receptor called ACE2 on the surface of human cells to enter them.

To make the discovery, Marc Eloit, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and his colleagues in France and Laos, took saliva, faeces and urine samples from 645 bats in caves in northern Laos. In three horseshoe (Rhinolophus) bat species, they found viruses that are each more than 95% identical to SARS-CoV-2, which they named BANAL-52, BANAL-103 and BANAL-236.

Natural origin
“When SARS-CoV-2 was first sequenced, the receptor binding domain didn’t really look like anything we’d seen before,” says Edward Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney in Australia. This caused some people to speculate that the virus had been created in a laboratory. But the Laos coronaviruses confirm these parts of SARS-CoV-2 exist in nature, he says.

“I am more convinced than ever that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin,” agrees Linfa Wang, a virologist at Duke–NUS Medical School in Singapore.

Together with relatives of SARS-CoV-2 discovered in Thailand2, Cambodia3 and Yunnan in southern China4, the study demonstrates that southeast Asia is a “hotspot of diversity for SARS-CoV-2-related viruses”, says Alice Latinne, an evolutionary biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society Vietnam in Hanoi.


Coronaviruses closely related to the pandemic virus discovered in Japan and Cambodia
In an extra step in their study, Eloit and his team showed in the laboratory that the receptor binding domains of these viruses could attach to the ACE2 receptor on human cells as efficiently as some early variants of SARS-CoV-2. The researchers also cultured BANAL-236 in cells, which Eloit says they will now use to study how pathogenic the virus is in animal models.

Last year, researchers described another close relative of SARS-CoV-2, called RaTG13, which was found in bats in Yunnan5. It is 96.1% identical to SARS-CoV-2 overall and the two viruses probably shared a common ancestor 40–70 years ago6. BANAL-52 is 96.8% identical to SARS-CoV-2, says Eloit — and all three newly discovered viruses have individual sections that are more similar to sections of SARS-CoV-2 than seen in any other viruses.

Viruses swap chunks of RNA with one another through a process called recombination, and one section in BANAL-103 and BANAL-52 could have shared an ancestor with sections of SARS-CoV-2 less than a decade ago, says Spyros Lytras, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Glasgow. “These viruses recombine so much that different bits of the genome have different evolutionary histories,” he says.

Missing links
The Laos study offers insight into the origins of the pandemic, but there are still missing links, say researchers. For example, the Laos viruses don’t contain the so-called furin cleavage site on the spike protein that further aids the entry of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses into human cells.

The study also doesn’t clarify how a progenitor of the virus could have travelled to Wuhan, in central China, where the first known cases of COVID-19 were identified — or whether the virus hitched a ride on an intermediate animal.


After the WHO report: what’s next in the search for COVID’s origins
Answers might come from sampling more bats and other wildlife in southeast Asia, which many groups are doing.

Another preprint, also posted on Research Square and not yet peer reviewed, sheds light on the work under way in China7. For that study, researchers sampled some 13,000 bats between 2016 and 2021 across China. But they did not find any close relatives of SARS-CoV-2, and conclude that these are “extremely rare in bats in China”.

But other researchers question this claim. “I strongly disagree with the suggestion that relatives of SARS-CoV-2 may not be circulating in Chinese bats, as such viruses have already been described in Yunnan,” says Holmes.

The corresponding author of the study declined to respond to Nature’s questions about the findings, because the paper is still under review.

Wang says that both studies highlight the importance of ramping up sampling in regions outside China to help uncover the origins of the pandemic.

[dan_bgblue]

Lots of could haves, maybes, 95% ers, not peer reviewed data.

To my eyes and brain, that reads like it was written by some employee at a ministry of the Chinese government. They even used the WHO report in paragraph 11.

The claims and data may all prove out to be true, I am just very skeptical.

[kingcat]

Lots of could haves, maybes, 95% ers, not peer reviewed data.

To my eyes and brain, that reads like it was written by some employee at a ministry of the Chinese government. They even used the WHO report in paragraph 11.

The claims and data may all prove out to be true, I am just very skeptical.

And for good reason Dan.

The truth is all that matters to me. Honestly, I have depended on Pedro's expertise from the outset and he not been wrong to date.

Our friend doesn't say where the virus may have been released into the world from, only that the science tells him it originally transferred from animal to human in its pandemic form.

The Spanish Flu's point of origination has been debated for nearly a century, and many now contend it all began in Haskell County, Kansas.
The truth will come. Though we may never see it.

As for my post. I thought the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, was legitimate and so I posted the new findings here. The report was submitted through them for review.
I would appreciate knowing why they wouldn't be as legit as others. There is also a Pasteur Institute branch in Cambodia by the way. And Laos borders China

It is a new finding and I assumed of interest since we just dont know.

I personally don't care about being right or wrong. (Is there a right and wrong in true research?) I am just an upholsterer who plays guitar a bit. And probably not worthy of this scientific discussion.
I promise, this is not a political debate or statement for me at all.

And I do not look for data to fit a predetermined belief. Because I only care about getting rid of covid..not finding it.
The former, although of huge interest, does not really matter to me. I can't do anything about it.

[kingcat]

I apologize. I only read your last post initially Dan and didnt realize this was a political thread.

I really thought what I posted would be appreciated.

[Basket Case]

How is this not bringing down Fauci, the NIH, and arguably the entire Washington establishment?

We helped fund "gain of function" research to make coronaviruses WORSE at a lab we KNEW was substandard no less, in control of a hostile foreign government with basically no checks on their actions.

And the reaction is a shoulder shrug?

Not to mention Fauci committing perjury to cover it up.

This is mind boggling to me. Certain members of our government took our money and gave it to our biggest adversary. Maybe this was noble research being conducted, or maybe we were paying to develop biological warfare for our own demise. We will never know, because the Chinese have no credibility at all. Anyone who trusted them to be a partner at all should be canned immediately.

I just can't get over the fact that Rand Paul is the only one who is making a big deal of this. Every taxpayer and their elected representatives should get heads rolling!

[catmanjack]

The country is full of mindless zombies right now being mesmerized by bozo and the Democrats.

[dan_bgblue]

I apologize. I only read your last post initially Dan and didnt realize this was a political thread.

I really thought what I posted would be appreciated.

The info you posted was absolutely worthy of consideration. I am just a picky old fart that looks for points to poke at the Chinese whenever I can.

[kingcat]

The info you posted was absolutely worthy of consideration. I am just a picky old fart that looks for points to poke at the Chinese whenever I can.

I’m no fan of them either. Other than Jacky Chan in a couple of movies (I think he is Chinese at least)

[CitizenBBN]

It's not "natural" in that it just up and happened in Cambodia or Laos one day. It may be natural in that it is from a bat or other animal, but that's exactly what was being studied at the Wuhan lab. Their research was doing what the Paris team was doing, which was collecting and studying these viruses.

so that report really tells us nothing we didn't know. We know the virus is likely from bats, but we don't know how it got from bats to humans, and still don't. The most plausible explanation is that the lab that was isolating those viruses and studying them lost containment, esp. since the outbreak happened right where that lab sits.

[dan_bgblue]

COVID-19 origins search: China denies WHO access to bat caves

China has denied the World Health Organization access to bat caves and wildlife farming areas in a region six hours west of Wuhan — as it emerged that nearby wet markets were banned from selling live animals just days before Beijing acknowledged a new virus had been detected, according to a report.

WHO scientists have been trying to access hundreds of caves that contain bats in Enshi prefecture in Hubei province — west of the Chinese city where COVID-19 first emerged, The Washington Post said Monday.

The scientists also want to investigate nearby wildlife farming areas that, prior to the pandemic, were known to breed thousands of wild animals.