Coronavirus Is Bat Coronavirus With SARS Receptor

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Genetic analysis of the COVID-19 virus shows that it is very similar to a coronavirus in bats but the receptor binding looks like the receptor for SARS. This could happen naturally with slow changes of one in ten thousand sequences each year. This appeared all at once. This gives support to the belief that the Wuhan lab took the bat virus and attached the SARS receptor.

However, this could happen with the mechanism of antigenic shift. While influenza viruses change all the time due to antigenic drift, antigenic shift happens less frequently.

Antigenic shift is the process by which two or more different strains of a virus, or strain of two or more different viruses, combine to form a new subtype having a mixture of the surface antigens of the two or more original strains. The term is often applied specifically to influenza, as that is the best-known example, but the process is also known to occur with other viruses, such as visna virus in sheep. Antigenic shift is a specific case of reassortment or viral shift that confers a phenotypic change.

Antigenic shift is contrasted with antigenic drift, which is the natural mutation over time of known strains of influenza (or other things, in a more general sense) which may lead to a loss of immunity, or in vaccine mismatch. Antigenic drift occurs in all types of influenza including influenza A, influenza B and influenza C. Antigenic shift, however, occurs only in influenza A because it infects more than just humans. Affected species include other mammals and birds, giving influenza A the opportunity for a major reorganization of surface antigens. Influenza B and C principally infect humans, minimizing the chance that a reassortment will change its phenotype drastically

The Lancet published Genomic characterization and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding.

Phylogenetic analysis revealed that 2019-nCoV fell within the subgenus Sarbecovirus of the genus Betacoronavirus, with a relatively long branch length to its closest relatives bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21, and was genetically distinct from SARS-CoV. Notably, homology modeling revealed that 2019-nCoV had a similar receptor-binding domain structure to that of SARS-CoV, despite amino acid variation at some key residues.

As a typical RNA virus, the average evolutionary rate (antigenic drift) for coronaviruses is roughly one in ten-thousand nucleotide substitutions per site per year, with mutations arising during every replication cycle. It is, therefore, striking that the sequences of 2019-nCoV from different patients described here were almost identical, with greater than 99·9% sequence identity. This finding suggests that 2019-nCoV originated from one source within a very short period and was detected relatively rapidly. However, as the virus transmits to more individuals, constant surveillance of mutations arising is needed.

Phylogenetic analysis showed that bat-derived coronaviruses fell within all five subgenera of the genus Betacoronavirus.

SOURCES- Lancet, David Brin, Wikipedia Antigenic Shift, CDC
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

79 thoughts on “Coronavirus Is Bat Coronavirus With SARS Receptor”

  2. Spreading is a major effective part of biowaepons, it spreads like hell.
    2% death is indeed low, who said it was finished ?, or maybe that was the designed goal ?, might the virus be likely to evolve in something worse soon ?.

  3. Oscar razor… can we think of a more complex way how such a a-natural virus suddenly takes over the world. O are we afraid for some pollitical (trade / dollar) reason to point a finger to someone ?

    i’d say its the 3th time they lost something out in the wide.

  5. The chance for those changes are extreme dimm even in the case of horizontal gene transfer. If there would have been natural selection then there would be people around patient zero with similair alike viruses, which was not the case (thats where the report is about).

    In short we point a finger towards China, in a lot of technical terms what the hell did they do

  6. Your mis interprenting the article, it said that its unlikely it had a natural origin.
    Because there should have been more alike viruses in the wild (if it was natural), however what they saw : was a sudden huge genetically different type of a sars virus. Which is not normal nature at work, nature changes only say 1% every so often. Nature doesnt take 50% genese of genetic pool A and genetic pool B to create a new species (genetic evolution only changes a small amount of genes).

    Its as if in one night suddenly a massive stampede of unicorns enter a field, with no genetic evolution behind it. Sure it started with 1, but outside of the field nothing alike it existed where did the unicorn then evolve from..

  7. Why would someone combine lethal virusses ?.
    Who would grant money to such research ?.
    Should such work be considered a crime against humanity ?

  8. “Ready, fire, aim” is your motto, eh?

    Ya think Tolkien really believed in Elves and Hobbits, or maybe he just liked to write about them and other people liked to read about them?

    Or howzabout Arthur C. Clarke? You think he really believed that aliens had hidden monolith shaped computers all over the Solar System? While he couldn’t rule out the possibility, he probably would have needed some pretty convincing proof before he believed it.

  9. Just to be clear: every day we are exposed and infected by hundreds of viruses at the same time. Usually they are quite similar to something our immune system already met so they get destroyed quite early. Furthermore we have a lot of different cell types in our body so not all viruses infect the same cells, but it is still a fairly common process. Feel free to search “viral recommendation” for more details.
    Regards

  10. This release of virus was much early. Was meant to be trial release for Tokyo olympians, not Wuhan so close! Sorry for mixing up.

  11. Brian laid out a confusing red herring with his talk of random walk mutation.
    And the names, I’ll admit, aren’t as clear as they should be.
    Antigenic Shift vs. Antigenic Drift.

    Sound the same, very different.

    In simple terms, the Antigenic DRIFT is when viruses mix and match their genes with that of a different virus. Hence, a big, sudden change that adopts a structure from another virus.

    It’s explained in the diagram in this article, though admittedly not explained very clearly.

  12. No need to say they’re unwelcome. Just “503 Service Unavailable, sorry”. Or more subtly, wrap it in costs and red tape such that the common elderly person has too much trouble reaching the service. Heck, just adding a waiting list would do.

  13. How likely would it be for China to just come out and say anyone over seventy is no longer welcome or needed. Please just go off and die naturally, we will not supply you with any meds or therapy to keep you alive, I would think that would not fly well with other nations or peoples, and cause mass migration of the elderly to other countries. Now as an effecient way to kill off or cull the herds release a bio weapon that closely resembles a common flu bug, that effective kills the weak, and the science community will race to defend these antigenic shifts. Good thing I am still healthy or I could never enjoy these partisan comments. Either way we are now stuck with it, let it do its thing, may the strong survive

  14. No plot hole, How likely would it be for China to just come out and say anyone over seventy is no longer welcome or needed. Please just go off and die naturally, we will not supply you with any meds or therapy to keep you alive, I would think that would not fly well with other nations or peoples, and cause mass migration of the elderly to other countries. Now as an effecient way to kill off or cull the herds release a bio weapon that closely resembles a common flu bug, that effective kills the weak, and the science community will race to defend these antigenic shifts. Good thing I am still healthy or I could never enjoy these partisan comments. Either way we are now stuck with it, let it do its thing, may the strong survive

  17. This is a weak cover-up.

    “2019-nCoV had a similar receptor-binding domain structure to that of SARS-CoV, *despite amino acid variation at some key residues*”

    Those key residues are at the very tips of the spikes on the virus and determine what the virus will bind to and which cells it will infect. Those 32 residues, never seen in a coronavirus before, come from four separated regions in the genome which happen to fold in such a way as to come together to form the binding site. Two of these inserted sequences, 12 residues total, are identical to sequences from HIV, and the other two totaling 20 residues are also identical to HIV sequences, but with gaps. The odds of 32 residues being identical would be ~4B to 1 if they were each a 50-50 chance; given the 1 in 10000 per residue per generation mutation rate, the odds would be something like 1 in 2^150, but considering the exact location and function of those residues, it is certain that they were artificially spliced in.

    from ZH Feb.1: “Coronavirus Contains “HIV Insertions”, Stoking Fears Over Artificially Created Bioweapon” quoting paper: “Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag””

  18. I’ve regularly seen GoatGuy misapply Occam’s Razor – which is “the simplest hypothesis is the correct one”. Many people say “the simplest answer is the correct one” but that’s an actually incorrect simplification of it.
    Aliens did it is always a simpler answer EDIT: but a seriously complicated hypothesis /EDIT A lot of people don’t like an Occam’s razor hypothesis E = mc^2 because it requires a couple years of physics class to actually understand the complex answer to that hypothesis.
    It’s a combination of a skew towards drama by bored people and intellectual laziness.

  19. I have added in information about Antigenic Shift. This is how this could have happened. Antigenic Shift happens infrequently but does happen.

  21. For those of you that are interested, I looked up the locations for the  Wuhan Seafood Wholesale Market and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. They are on opposite sides of the Yangtze river and by my guess a good 30 min to one hour drive from each other.

  22. Brin’s post is titled “Lethally infectious! Was this virus man-made in Wuhan? And even worse viral memes”
    People with poor reading comprehension thinks he’s pushing this conspiracy theory.

  23. Experts debunk fringe theory linking China’s coronavirus to weapons research

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology

  24. China’s average age is less than 40. If this virus was released intentionally it would make more sense to do it in 15 years where the SS system would be under strain.

  25. My certainty that it is natural is on the same measure as the certainty this article says it was engineered in a lab.

    There is no reason at all so far to believe it was engineered, so I will work with what SPECIALISTS from all over the world say, including all the people from LANCET.

    The two listed reasons to not think it is natural are quite sketchy.

    1 – there is a lab specialized in viruses such as it, 12 km from the epicenter. In a city with 11 million people.

    2 – the SARS receptor… which specialists say it is natural and even likely.

    Unless new evidence appears, this one is absolutely not enough for subscribing to the theory it was a manufactured virus.

    One can very well go further and say it was the USA that engineered the virus and planted it near the Chinese Lab exactly to make it sound as something sloppy from the Chinese. The reason obviously being the whole trade war.

    I subscribe to none of the theories. Thank you. There are specialists in the field and they say it’s natural.

  26. I am just not a pathetic conspiracy theorist. I apply SKEPTCISM to this nonsense.

    If I created the virus because I furiously defend this as being just a natural antigenic shift (antiGENIC, not anti-GENETIC. Maybe you should research a little bit before making anti-scientific conspiracy theory accusations), then I probably am also responsible for the spreading the lie the Earth is a globe, or the lie that men landed on the Moon, or the lie that airplanes did really hit the Twin Towers.

    I mean, I vigorously fight these other nonsensic conspiracy theories when I see them too!!

    ” If COVID-19 has a VERY SIMILAR receptor to SARS then maybe believable. But it is the EXACT SARS receptor? ”

    Did you EVEN READ how Antigenic Shift happens. It must be the EXACT SARS receptor because it IS the SARS receptor. That’s exactly how it works.

    If it was not the SARS receptor, THEN it would be engineered.

  27. It seems Conspiracy Theories run high specially among americans.

    influenza virus has much higher mortality rates among the elderly than this corona virus.

    AND the whole premise is nonsensic. Everything indicates this IS a natural virus, with the SARS receptors due to antigenic shift.

    Are you a Flat Earther too?

  28. Easier to just deny whatever services that are in short supply to whichever segment of the population that is unwanted. The problem would sort itself out soon enough. Without a good explanation why a virus is preferable, I’d consider it a plot hole.

  29. There’s nothing firm linking the virus to the market. All we know is that a high percentage of early cases reportedly placed them at the market.

    It could easily have been an accidental release of a SARS-like corona virus being studied at the BSL-4 lab. Carried away by an infected researcher and spread near the wet market. This isn’t even unlikely; it happened twice with SARS after the initial outbreak from a BSL-3 lab near Beijing.

    There is also the Wuhan Center for Disease Control, which is a BSL-1 facility where bats and other animals for disease research were collected and stored. This lab is 300 meters from the market. Could easily have leaked from there.

    There were no bats known at the market place and they do not have the local culture to eat them. Either it jumped through a different animal like a pangolin or it leaked from some place studying corona viruses.

  30. And when patience is in short supply, as often is in such fictional works, a selective virus with mortality skewed toward the elderly and/or infirm achieves unscrupulous tyrannical goals in weeks or months, rather than years.

  31. SARS had a lethality of 3% initially and it tooks quite some time to discover that it was 6% (in China) and 18% (outside of China), which averages out to 10%.

    The kind interpretation was that China was mistaken and misidentifying a lot of deaths as not SARS but “viral pneumonia” or that China was *really good* at identifying mild cases of SARS. The unkind interpretation is they were intentionally lying and it really was closer to 18%.

    Diamond princess if handled correctly will tell us the lethality of this thing in a couple of weeks. It could be a few permille (a lot of asymptomatic, mild flu cases) or it could easily be 10%. 2% is at this point a guesstimate.

  32. I am sorry, but what you claim is a misconception: even if the viral genome contained exogenous fragments (from a different organism, virus or otherwise) this will not prove an artificial origin: viruses have substantial horizontal transmission of their genetic information as it is enough that two different viruses A and B infect the same cell for the genomes to interact and potentially recombine. In most cases the recombinant genome is defective of some essential part and is subject to negative selective pressure (as other normal viral particles are more efficient), but if the recombination allows to improve efficiency, infectivity, cell invasion (as in the case of a new receptor) etc… these are all advantageous traits that will allow the new virus to spread quickly in the host first and then in different hosts.
    No artificial manipulation of the genome is required.
    Regards

  33. China has a big social security problem.

    This virus is much deadlier to old people, especially old people with chronic health issues. The same people who drive up costs of social security.

    This virus looks man made. Is it a bio-weapon or an insane bio-“solution for tax problems”?

  34. If one’s going to let the elderly die as a “solution” to this demographic bomb, then there is no bomb. Just leaving them be would accomplish the same result. No virus needed. Just a bit of patience.

  35. If I was writing a novel, a work of fiction, I would point out that that China faces an existential crisis in that their work force is already older than our own and about to get so far ahead that, over the next twenty years, they will go from 8 workers per elderly person, to 2 workers per elderly person.

    Automation is essential, but it may actually exacerbate the problem in that there will be even less workers (or it may help in that there will be more produced). That’s a wait-and-see, but obviously a concern.

    Thanks to one-child policy and some other issues, China is facing a demographic disaster unprecedented in human history.

    None of that is fiction, that’s just background. But then I would introduce my villains. These would be zealots and bureaucratic cogs, working for an unscrupulous tyrannical leadership, that has decided the cure might be to “explore” ways to help the elderly on their way, and reduce the coming burden. Something that targeted the elderly and infirm more than anyone else would be ideal, from their (purely fictitious) point of view. And then it gets out, ten or fifteen years before it is ready or needed, in a stupid accident, when a researcher becomes infected and carries it to his home, just a few miles away.

    But I write sci-fi and fantasy, and occasionally, play at writing a mystery or two. Thrillers aren’t one of my genres.

  37. The conclusion indicated in this article is not correct antigenic shift is a natural process, and there is big selective pressure to expand the landscape (potential range of receptors).
    Furthermore, even observing that the viral genome was containing exogenous fragments will prove nothing: viruses have substantial horizontal transmission of their genetic information. This means that if two different viruses A and B infect the same host their genome can recombine together. In most cases the recombinant genome is defective of some essential part and the viroid particles that carry it will be ineffective, but if the recombination allows to improve efficiency, infectivity, cell invasion (as in the case of a new receptor) etc… these are all advantageous traits that will allow the new virus to spread quickly.
    No artificial manipulation of the genome is required.
    But this kind of fluidity is advantageous to us too: telomerase is almost certainly a viral reverse transcriptase that fossilized in our genome and it became useful to avoid chromosome erosion.

    Regards

  39. It’s not publicly identified by China as a biowarfare lab. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a biowarfare lab.

  40. No, not “engineered!”, that’s going too far in the other direction.

    If the same organism is infected with two different viruses, you can get natural recombination events that mix and match their DNA or RNA. So this sort of thing absolutely can happen naturally.

    It can also be done artificially. I’m not objecting to Penna cautioning that it could be a natural virus. I just object to his certainty that it is.

  41. I agree that the case for it being an artificial virus is far from proven.

    BUT. This virus being natural being possible shouldn’t be confused with it being certain. The fact that the outbreak began near a biowarfare lab is indeed a cause for suspicion. There seems to be an awful lot of desperation to kill the idea, rather than just go with the reality that it’s unproven.

    And, yes, the Wuhan lab IS a bioweapons lab.

  42. I think RogerPenna did it, see how furiously he defends the “natural process” of anti-genetic shift… If COVID-19 has a VERY SIMILAR receptor to SARS then maybe believable. But it is the EXACT SARS receptor? Engineered!

  43. @Goatguy SARS has a lethality rate of approx. 9.6% Covid19 is looking to have a overall mortality rate of under 2% which is still bad. The real issue of Covid19 is that many infected people are asymptomatic or get only mild cases which increases in the spread of the disease.

  44. The ONLY link you have for your conspiracy theory is that the market and the lab are 12 km apart.

    The whole premise of THIS NBF article, that it would need a very unlikely genetic mutation that would take many years, is bogus, because of the mechanism knwon as Antigenic Shift.

    I will go with what scientists and epidemologists say
    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/scientists-strongly-condemn-rumors-and-conspiracy-theories-about-origin-coronavirus

    Otherwise I should also start believing in Rossi’s E-Cat and that anyone trying to disprove it works is actually just someone afraid of the revolution it would bring. I would start beliving in Moon Landing Hoax, in 9/11 being an “internal” job, in Flat Earth.

  45. Because he is mixing a scientific paper from Lancet with a conspiracy theory, apparently published by David Brin (who is not a geneticist or a virologist) and is not acquainted with Antigenic Shift.

    So he comes up with this specific nonsense ” but the receptor binding looks like the receptor for SARS. This could happen naturally with slow changes of one in ten thousand sequences each year. This appeared all at once. ” to support the conspiracy theory. And people buy it.

    HOWEVER, both the person who wrote that as well as the people buying it do not know that ANTIGENIC SHIFT allows EXACTLY that…

    for example… a single pangolin that was infected with SARS gets bitten by a bat and gets the corona virus.

    Through antigenic shift mechanism, when invading a SARS infected cell of the pangolin, the coronavirus ACQUIRES the Sars receptor.

    A SINGLE virus. No need for thousands of genetic mutations and combinations.

    This is quite common in influenza virus… although it also goes through a lot antigenic DRIFT, which is a different thing.

  46. And the lab is 12 km from the epicenter.

    People are talking as if the market and the lab were next doors.

    It’s like linking a virus with the epicenter at the middle of central park with a lab south of Jersey City downtown.

    Anyway, the article premise is bollocks. The whole “1 in thousands of mutations, once per year” certainly is a phrase NOT COMING from anyone with knowledge of genetics and viruses.

    It’s called ANTIGENIC SHIFT and closely related viruses, when infecting the same animal, can end up mixing part of their genetic material and creating new strains.

    It’s entirely NATURAL, and even expected, that if a pangolin got infected by the bat coronavirus and the sars virus, that the SARS receptor might have drifted to the coronavirus.

  47. Or a virus that suffered ANTIGENIC SHIFT when infecting an animal also infected with SARS.

    If it’s a bioweapon, it’s the worst bio weapon ever. Mortality rate of about 2% in REPORTED cases (there are probably thousands who contracted the virus and showed no signs or only mild signs, and are not being accounted)…

    And of these 2% deaths, the vast majority in old people or people with pre-conditions.

  48. Let’s remake your analogy to match the REAL situation.

    You are walking under a tree and get hit in the head by something. You turn around and see a stone on the ground as well as several nuts from the tree.

    You jump to conclusions and assume that your neighbor, 3 blocks away, threw that stone on your head. After all, you two always hated each other and a few years ago YOU threw a stone on the head of someone you disliked, so you assume your neighbour also did that.

  49. Few hundred feet? It’s 36 THOUSAND feet from the lab. (12 km)

    And it is not a biowarfare lab.

    And above all, antigenic shift is quite common with this family of viruses.

  50. You make it sound like the first case was somebody dropping dead in front of one of the stalls in the market. No, the first identified case had no link to the market.

    It makes perfect sense that, once an infectious agent was present in the area, the market would become a prime transmission area. That doesn’t mean it originated there, and there’s reason to believe it didn’t.

  51. Brian did not lay any case. This was an ANTIGENIC SHIFT.

    ” it would take either a long sequence of mutations”

    No, it would not.

    “And then why did this random sequence replicate a known sequence from an unrelated virus?”

    Exactly because it did NOT replicate such sequence. Because it is a KNOWN mechanism known as ANTIGENIC SHIFT.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigenic_shift

  52. The Wuhan Seafood Wholesale Market is 12 km from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In a straight line.

    You guys make it sound as if it is one block away.

    It’s like a virus appearing in the very center of Central Park and people saying it’s “a walk away” from Liberty Science Center in Jersey City.

  53. Yes, it’s POSSIBLE for it to have happened naturally, a few hundred feet from a biowarfare lab.

    That doesn’t mean it’s likely it happened naturally, a few hundred feet from a biowarfare lab.

    Look, you get hit in the head with a stone, you turn around, and see a kid standing next to a pile of stones. It’s possible you got nailed by a meteor, it happens. But is that the reasonable conclusion under the circumstances?

  54. Brian laid out the case: While you could get this by natural mutation, it would take either a long sequence of mutations, (And then why did this random sequence replicate a known sequence from an unrelated virus?) or a fairly unlikely recombination event in somebody who was infected with two unrelated viruses at the same time.

    This is odds, not perfect logic. There are enough reasons to think “biowarfare lab” present that it becomes a reasonable conclusion, even if there are enough ways it could have happened without the lab to prevent it from being stone cold proof.

  55. You are usually so skeptical. Maybe getting out of your field of expertise you are less skeptical than with physics article?

    The Lancet article conclusion has nothing to do with this conspiracy theory. Antigenic Shift mechanism, common in influenza and coronaviruses, completely corresponds to the SARS receptor in the coronavirus part of the article.

  57. This was just a common case of antigenic shift.

    “This could happen naturally with slow changes of one in ten thousand sequences each year.”

    NO. It can happen in a SINGLE animal infected by both viruses.

  58. It’s not true and it is not the conclusion of the Lancet article.

    This is what is called an ANTIGENIC SHIFT and it happens naturally, no need to be made in a lab.

    Brian got a piece of a conspiracy theory and mixed it up with a good scientific article from Lancet, therefore he produced a completely new piece.

    It’s similar, but in viruses, it happens naturally, while in articles, like this one, it was really made into a lab. (or wherever Brian writes his pieces)

  59. Misleading article.

    This is absolutely NOT the conclusion of the Lancet article.

    Was this David Brin’s conclusion? Because AFAIK he is not an infectologist or geneticist.

    And it’s complete bollocks.

    This is called CROSS INFECTION. When a corona virus infects an animal which is ALREADY infected with the SARS virus, it allows the RECOMBINATION OF BOTH.

    It’s called ANTIGENIC SHIFT

    It’s common with influenza viruses.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigenic_shift

  60. That’s true, but it certainly is a reasonable deduction from all the known facts. Just the fact that it first appeared an easy walk from a biowarfare lab is enough to put it originating there on any rational list of possibilities. If it’s got a gene sequence that’s largely indistinguishable from a mostly unrelated virus, despite otherwise being very similar to its own kin, well, that doesn’t prove it completely, but it becomes close to a default assumption.

    This doesn’t have to mean it was released deliberately. An accident is quite possible.

  61. Why in your article do you say “Likely Joined in a Lab”, if in the same article is stated:

    “Therefore, on the basis of current data, it seems likely that the 2019-nCoV causing the Wuhan outbreak might also be initially hosted by bats, and might have been transmitted to humans via currently unknown wild animal(s) sold at the Huanan seafood market.”

  62. Nowhere in the lancet article it is said that the virus is made in a lab! Its just said that there is high likelyhood that the virus has originated from a single person.

  67. However SARS was very lethal seen 30% but did not transmit so easy.
    COVID–19 spreads easy but don’t appear to be much more lethal than a bad flue.

  68. SARS was wicked, came from out of the blue, and by the grace of Western Epidemiology, was ‘solved’ and resolved with a huge bolus of public fear, and a sobering number of infections and deaths.  

    MERS, the same, but less so. 

    COVID–19, seems around the same as SARS lethality wise, but also seems to have a higher degree of propagation-opportunity, since so many cases never show symptoms, but the infected still have opportunity to act as infectious carriers.  
    ________________________________________

    COVID–19 would be the FIRST known bioweapon accidentally (or who knows, even intentionally) inflicted on a sizable population.  

    Whether intentional or not, it seems to have all the fingerprints of nefarious science. And, whether you believe in ‘nefarious’ as in independent actors, or state actors, nefarious need only be “creating a novel, hard-to-defend-against bioweapon using state of the art Science and lacking plausible moral self-censuring. ”

    ⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
    ⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅

  69. This would not be the first the Chinese accidentally infected their own population with a bio-weapon. The former deputy director of the Soviet Union’s germ warfare program, Kanatjan Alibekov, (who now goes by Ken Alibek), stated that two outbreaks of hemorrhagic fevers in China were due to neligence in their bio-weapon programs.

  71. That’s a funny transition from being a lab to study infectious diseases, to become a mad scientist lair where they cook new ones.

  75. This is roughly the same kind of story that came from Zero Hedge a few weeks ago and Twitter kicked them off the platform. ZH traced it back to one particular scientist, his original credentials and the job posting he most likely responded to. The lab where this bat virus specialist worked is very close to the market where this was being worked on. I’d bet it’s a bio-weapon and sloppy work by the Chinese. U.S. tested various non-lethal bacteria in crowded cities to see how fast they would spread decades ago. Maybe something similar here?

  77. could be, or it just escaped the lab from sloppiness.
    They built this lab after the SARS scare, with cooperation from France.

    “Mr. Bernard Cazeneuve attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony and paid a visit to laboratory interior. In his speech, Mr. Cazeneuve declared France is proud of building jointly with China the first national P4 Laboratory. And he added that, as epidemic knows no borders, a united world society is a must to win over the challenge like Ebola to public health in recent years. Wuhan P4 Laboratory will be our front line of emerging infectious diseases prevention and control. France will join hands with China to firmly dedicate to operating top-notch scientific research to response to the diseases. He thanked Chinese government and all the contributors’ extraordinary contributions, and wished more in-depth scientific cooperation on emerging infectious diseases around P4 laboratories will be developed by our two nations. ”

    This is hurting China’s economy extremely hard, as companies are having to quickly setup manufacturing in other countries, and likely wont be coming back to China. The longer this self inflicted virus is un-controlled, the larger the problem for Xi. If this keeps up, he will long for the days when it was ONLY Hong Kong fighting back.

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