A thread on the origins of COVID-19, and a possible bio-containment failure at one of the Wuhan labs.

I feel there are facts not enough people know about, so I decided to summarise the important & interesting ones in this post.

Like every stellar suspence thriller, it starts with mysterious deaths that needs to be solved.

To solve this puzzle, we must go back to April 2012, in Mojiang county, where six miners contracted a SARS-like pneumonia, and three of them died.

https://t.co/zcb4DLg9Ec
In the same month & year of the outbreak, there was an USAID/PREDICT bat sampling project in Mojiang. (I strongly suspect they were the one's who hired the miners to clean the mineshaft for one of their project.)

https://t.co/2Ds9QjHi96
In July 2012, a few months after the mineshaft pneumonia outbreak, their was a 6-month disease control work in Mojiang county.
https://t.co/npkyi9sWqO
More high profile visits to Mojiang by China CDC officials were made later on:
https://t.co/c1mNtLZWGc
https://t.co/aoCIojYwYH
(Was there a bigger outbreak that they were trying to control?)
Oddly enough, the atypical pneumonia cases among the miners didn't make it to the official CDC statistics for 2012, which definitely suggests a cover-up to me.

https://t.co/rBy4dic7BI
In another case, a Thai tourist in Yunnan died of multiple organ failure caused by "unexplained pneumonia" in 2013. The symptoms were similar, and he was admitted to the same hospital for treatment as the miners.

https://t.co/uEbcZRGGPE
Even this case wasn't included in the official China CDC statistics.

https://t.co/pGWhIAeqw2
Around the same time, China's Ministry of Science & Technology initiated a project (2013FY113500) to identify and investigate viral pathogens and its relation with major infectious diseases.

https://t.co/ruGi3q97F6
A multi-year bat surveillance project was carried out in that exact mine by multiple labs across China (including WIV & China CDC).

You can read this in significant more detail, here:

The medical thesis (2013): https://t.co/5g5cdtFSLr
PhD thesis (2016):
https://t.co/mort5jT2ki
The 2013 medical thesis, from a Kunming Medical University doctor who treated the miners, concluded that the pneumonia was caused by SARS-like coronavirus from Rhinolophus sinicus.

https://t.co/dTqLjLvEQA
The miners' pneumonia cases were clinically virtually identical to COVID-19.

https://t.co/oayroSSblI
Other essential parts of the mystery, like when was the last trip to the mineshaft, how many samples were collected, and how many were cultured/isolated, remain elusive.

WIV was asked to provide the samples for RaTG13, but they declared that they no longer have it.
To add to this mystery, the viral database for Project 2013FY113500 has been taken down, exactly what I would hope if they had something to hide.

https://t.co/7xGsLlgGBA

(Archived version of the database: https://t.co/wy35NjmAK0)
Next clue in the mystery, Project 2013FY113500 was under review by China's MoST before a 30 September deadline, last year. Part of it was *state secret*

https://t.co/tpOxYVwfnr
A detailed summary of a proposed spillover event during this review of samples, can be read here:

https://t.co/grqgKf8NVz
As per another MoST tender over 11 July-13 Sept 2019, winners were required to identify 5 major novel viral pathogens from wild animals and carry out a biosecurity risk assessment by testing them on small animals.

https://t.co/raXjrnpe7q
Access to WIV pathogen database was restricted on Sep 12, coinciding with the last day of the tender.

https://t.co/4BPs3bBmNV
WIV still hasn't explained why did they restrict access to their pathogen databases.
All of these leads me to suspect that there was a possible bio-containment failure at one of their labs around Sept-Oct 2019. Factor these:

Mysterious blips in Google search for the terms Coronavirus and SARS, in Hubei province in September 2019

https://t.co/UGD6tulYb1
There was a tender for an "Emergency" purchase of virus detection kits in September last year. It contains orders for 40,500 PCR kits (including for Coronaviruses).

https://t.co/yF1cpOWVgf
Two tenders by Wuhan CDC for disposing 2.5 Tons (2 + 0.5) of hazardous bio-chemical waste from their labs (it's a lot!!)

https://t.co/OuxONqa5hf

https://t.co/IWvfOJxpRh
They mention that the warehouses of the two companies which had relevant disposal qualifications had a fire in 2019, and had their license suspended.

(Where was the waste disposed off? Did they dispose it safely?)
On September 6, the Zhifang STP in Wuhan was officially shut down, & the sewage from the plant was directly transferred to the Jiangxia STP for advanced treatment. The Jiangxia STP is in very close proximity to the WIV lab complex.

https://t.co/PO8r3WY4w5
There were multiple on-site lab safety inspections at Wuhan, during September last year.

https://t.co/YhVSeiPetf

https://t.co/KuwXDMYOlp

https://t.co/8HblfaB6eU

https://t.co/1j4LD5jGvK
On Oct 2019 Hubei Health Commission gave license approval to numerous companies in Wuhan for making/procuring disinfectants, Sodium Hypochlorite, Pipelines, and Pipe fittings

https://t.co/FHoCiSz6Ba
They also released a new biosafety law in October last year.

https://t.co/MlRLcIf6gU
On Nov 2019, there was a tender for (among other things) Waste liquid sensing system with high sealing performance and automatic alarm

https://t.co/WF6EtoPssq
In Dec 2019, China's new "vaccine management law" was officially implemented in all BSL-3 & above labs

https://t.co/QmYDl01uHo
(Were the new biosafety laws, regulations, and on-site lab inspections a reaction to a probable spillover event?)
Phylogenetic studies also point towards the COVID-19 outbreak starting around Sept-Oct last year.

https://t.co/wgfGVsym5G

https://t.co/z1gDsvJTo0

https://t.co/4G12TFhzEa
There are serious doubts about RaTG13 and Pangolin CoVs, and the shady process by which they suddenly appeared.

https://t.co/OwWVOvSImb

https://t.co/FtRsNDO2BD

https://t.co/jjxAElSfYG
And we have a virus extremely adapted to humans without any close intermediate version, neither in humans, nor in the animals.

https://t.co/eMBstXprOX
Today, we have no plausible hypothesis to explain how the virus could have appeared in Wuhan in a natural way. But the fact that the epicenter was Wuhan, in close proximity to several virology labs specializing in CoVs, it is conceivable that the virus spilled from a laboratory.
There is no proof of a lab spillover, but the hypothesis is supported by robust circumstantial evidences and a long pattern of scientific misconduct by China-based researchers.
Scientific, media and forensic community needs to verify the possibility of a laboratory spillover.

Whichever side of the debate you stand on, I hope it mas more to do with fact-based science than your political beliefs. /End

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