"Muddy Waters" Senate Report on COVID-19 Origins Released and It's Lab Leak for the Win

This report also concludes that the CCP was responding to the coronavirus months before the rest of the world was even aware of its existence

The preponderance of circumstantial evidence supports an unintentional research-related incident.

There may have been not one but two separate unintentional lab leaks dating back to the fall of 2019 in Wuhan, China with significant evidence supporting that COVID-19 was a lab-created and altered virus.

“The preponderance of information affirms the plausibility of a research-related incident that was likely unintentional resulting from failures of biosafety containment during vaccine-related research,” the report states.

Muddy Water: The Origins of COVID-19

A report titled “Muddy Waters: The Origins of COVID-19” was recently released by U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP). The report that has been in the works for over two years was championed by Senator Richard Burr, a Republican representing North Carolina.

Source: https://www.marshall.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sen-marshall-releases-bombshell-covid-19-origins-report/

The report was somewhat abandoned when Burr left office. Burr's report was authored by Dr. Robert Kadlec, a former HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response during the Trump administration. Kadlec, a physician and retired Air Force colonel, said he believed China was motivated to explore the COVID-19 virus after their country was battered by SARS from 2002-4.

This 302-page document was the product of a multi-disciplinary effort by medical, scientific, legal, political and general policy analysts to catalog open source (unclassified) information relevant to the respective theories. The core investigative team was comprised of two attorneys, three research assistants, a China foreign area specialist and two (a medical and veterinarian) epidemiologists. The core group was supported by an outside scientific advisory group consisting of three former U.S. national high containment laboratory directors, a medical infectious disease physician, medical epidemiologist, two veterinarians, two biosafety experts, and two molecular biologists.

Summary of Evidence:

Key Takeaways:

1. Eyewitness accounts, media reports, epidemiological modeling and additional academic studies further support early/mid-October to mid-November 2019 as the window of emergence. The virus may have infected people and went undetected due to clinical characteristics of asymptomatic and low acuity illness for the infected majority. The prevalence of the disease circulating in the community would not be recognized until the number of severe cases exceeded existing baselines or hospital capacities.

   

2. Several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 including the loss of smell and ground-glass opacities in the lungs. Some analyses suggest that there could have been instances of failed human-to-human transmission before the virus finally began to spread widely.

   

3. There have been no documented positive SARS-CoV-2 animal samples from any Wuhan wet market. Nor have vendors of these animals tested positive. Further, the suspected natural hosts, bats or pangolins, were not sold at the Huanan market. The genetic sequencing of environmental samples recovered from the Huanan market, however, shows them identical to recovered human clinical samples.

   

4. Laboratory animals used to test SARS-CoV could have been sold to the Seafood market and initiated an outbreak there. Two lineages of SARS-CoV-2, designated A and B, existed among the earliest known cases and co-circulated globally since early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Lineage A, more similar to the bat coronavirus, was associated with the initial introduction of the virus in infected lab workers while samples from the market were of lineage B. Multiple events could have occurred in the laboratories; they are not mutually exclusive including an outbreak caused by an infected laboratory animal.

   Although Chinese officials denied any illegal live animal sales occurred at the Huanan Seafood Market, Chinese lab technicians have an unfortunate history of selling experimental animals to vendors such as the ones in Wuhan’s wet market. Instead of properly disposing of infected animals by cremation, as the law requires, they sell them on the side to make a little extra cash. One Beijing researcher, now in jail, made a million dollars selling his monkeys and rats on the live animal market.

Source: https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/02/24/expert-chinese-scientists-sell-lab-animals-meat-black-market/

5. The Huanan Seafood Market seemingly played a critical role in the early outbreak, but its exact role is unclear. The seafood market was most likely an early super spreader event and not the origin. Approximately 33 percent of the earliest known human COVID-19 cases (with symptom onset dates in mid- to late-December 2019) were associated with the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. Where were the majority (67%) of cases associated with then? The focus on association with the market likely resulted in officials overstating the number of market-linked cases as percentage of total cases from December 30 to January 15.

6. After collection, bat and other animal virus samples from across China routinely underwent initial evaluation in BSL-2 settings where they were first evaluated, usually by graduate students, for the presence of SARS-related beta coronaviruses.

7. A January 2018 U.S. Department of State cable reported that “the new lab had a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high containment laboratory.” The cable further cautioned that the WIV’s work with bat coronaviruses potentially posed a risk of a SARS-related pandemic.

8. In mid-September of 2019, the WIV took their sample and sequence database offline and enhanced physical security of its campus. Wuhan officials conducted an emergency response drill on September 18, 2019 at its international airport that included identifying and responding to an arriving passenger infected with a novel coronavirus.

   

   Source: https://www.alamy.com/chinese-customs-officers-attend-an-emergency-drill-for-public-health-accidents-at-the-chongqing-jiangbei-international-airport-in-chongqing-china-19-august-2019-the-general-administration-of-customs-held-an-emergency-drill-for-public-health-accidents-in-chongqing-china-on-monday-19-august-2019-quarantine-officers-at-the-scene-initiated-an-emergency-response-including-medical-screening-and-rapid-laboratory-testing-photo-by-zou-le-imaginechinasipa-usa-image409122694.html

9. On November 19, 2019, the WIV hosted a special senior leadership biosafety and security training session. The senior leadership session was followed by a two and a half day remedial biosafety training course for WIV researchers and individuals from other Wuhan research institutes, including the Wuhan University.

   At the same session, the Deputy Director of the WIV’s Office of Safety and Security “pointed to the severe consequences that could result from hidden safety dangers, and stressed that the rectification of hidden safety risks must be thorough, and management standards must be maintained.”

10. True to form, Chinese officials banned certain keywords from social media platforms including; unknown Wuhan pneumonia, SARS outbreak in Wuhan, and P4 virus lab (Chinese equivalent of BSL-4). Then on January 1, 2020 Chinese officials issued an order prohibiting medical professionals, academic researchers, and commercial biotechnology firms from sharing any information related to the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, the nature of the virus, and other data, such as samples of the virus.

This was the perfect storm of events. People are convicted of murder in trials on less evidence than is presented here to draw conclusions on the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

What are your thoughts?

1. How do you feel knowing that all the economic disruption, loss of life and damage was due to this series of unfortunate events?

2. People talk about accountability, but what should be the repercussions for all of those involved?

Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think.