U.S. authorities admit COVID-19 likely from nature and not genetically engineered

[Nan Yang]

North America 20:17, 22-Oct-2021

U.S. authorities admit COVID-19 likely from nature and not genetically engineered

People take COVID-19 tests in Los Angeles, U.S., September 4, 2020. /CFP

U.S. authorities admitted the SARS-CoV-2 virus is likely "the result of viral evolution in nature" and was not developed as "a biological weapon" or "genetically engineered" after months of intensive investigations on the origins of the pandemic.

Francis Collins, director of U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) said in an open statement published on its official website late Wednesday that the virus is likely from nature, potentially jumping directly to humans or through an unidentified intermediary animal host.

In his statement, he pointed out U.S. intelligence agencies agreed that "the virus was not developed as a biological weapon and most agencies assessed that SARS-CoV-2 most likely was not genetically engineered."

He mentioned misinformation and disinformation are flooding in as there isn't definitive answer to the origins yet, which "does more harm than good."

He stated clearly that the bat coronaviruses analyzed by Wuhan Institute of Virology under NIH grant are "genetically far distant" from SARS-CoV-2 as well as impossible to cause the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Any claims to the contrary are demonstrably false," he said in the statement.

Collins referenced several other infectious diseases still threatening the human society and also cost a long way to figure out its origins. It took 14 years for the scientists to locate a bat population whose virus caused SARS epidemic in 2003. And the origins of the Ebola outbreak in 2014 is yet unknown after seven years.

 

[Beast]

Where are the troll who keep insisting covid-19 is man made by China? All went hiding?

 

[Hafizzz]

However, Trump and his supporters will insist that Covid is man made.

 

[tower9]

Covering Fauci’s tracks I see

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

It is a bat virus but released intentionally to make Trump lose election and put down Hong Kong protest. The chance of an animal virus jumping into humans happens once every few centuries. The chance of it happening in December 2019 is astronomically small. 1 in a million or less.

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

It is a bat virus but released intentionally to make Trump lose election and put down Hong Kong protest. The chance of an animal virus jumping into humans happens once every few centuries. The chance of it happening in December 2019 is astronomically small. 1 in a million or less.

These animal viruses don't jump to humans unless certain people make it happen.

 

[gambit]

No link to the article, especially not to the NIH website.

 

[Menthol]

From nature??

Only if someone can explain the process from A point to Z point, from what animal before it jumps to human.

Covid-19 is out from nowhere.

The A to Z process does not occur in nature, but in the lab.

 

[MH.Yang]

COVID19 comes from the fort Detrick biological laboratory in the United States.

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

It is extremely rare for viruses to jump from animals to humans. It only happens once every few hundred years or few thousands years. And when they do, they don't infect humans well since they are not adapted for it. SARS was barely able to infect humans. It went extinct within weeks. I believe Chinese tempered with bat viruses, changed them so they infect humans well, and used it to make Trump lose election and put down Hong Kong protest. I don't believe it is natural.

 

[kankan326]

Watch this video.

'Respiratory outbreak' being investigated at retirement community after 54 residents fall ill

Fairfax County health officials said the source of the outbreak had not yet been identified.

abcnews.go.com

 

[gambit]

Statement on Misinformation about SARS-CoV-2 Origins

To date, the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic has not been identified, despite intensive efforts to do so.

www.nih.gov

October 20, 2021​

​

To date, the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic has not been identified, despite intensive efforts to do so. This is not unusual — confirming with 100% certainty the origin of a virus is a long and complicated process. It took 14 years for scientists to find a single bat population that contained all the necessary genetic components of SARS-CoV, the virus that caused the 2003 SARS epidemic. We still do not know the origins of the 2014 Ebola outbreak.​

​

Unfortunately, in the absence of a definitive answer, misinformation and disinformation are filling the void, which does more harm than good. NIH wants to set the record straight on NIH-supported research to understand naturally occurring bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, funded through a subaward from NIH grantee EcoHealth Alliance. Analysis of published genomic data and other documents from the grantee demonstrate that the naturally occurring bat coronaviruses studied under the NIH grant are genetically far distant from SARS-CoV-2 and could not possibly have caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Any claims to the contrary are demonstrably false.​

​

The scientific evidence to date indicates that the virus is likely the result of viral evolution in nature, potentially jumping directly to humans or through an unidentified intermediary animal host. Historically, many viruses have emerged from animals to cause epidemics and pandemics, including influenza, Ebola, Zika, West Nile fever, SARS, and more. Importantly, after an intensive investigation, agencies in the U.S Intelligence Community agreed that the virus was not developed as a biological weapon and most agencies assessed that SARS-CoV-2 most likely was not genetically engineered.​

​

Public health and scientific organizations, including NIH, are intensely interested in getting a definitive answer to inform efforts to prevent future events. This effort would benefit from less speculation and more scientific cooperation, especially from China, without which the SARS-CoV-2 origins will be impossible to identify.​

​

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, National Institutes of Health​

​

It is true that the default position is natural evolution. However, the speed and fatality of the new virus also triggered a default response: investigation. And if found evidences leads the investigation away from the natural evolution position, we have to reconsider the true cause origin. The official US NIH statement is clear, that while Francis Collins does not deviate from the default position, his support for that is 'likely', not absolute. The COVID-19 issue is now a tug-of-war with the bar being far away from the default position of natural evolution, and another NIH position is that China have NOT been fully cooperative in pulling that bar back to the default position.

There are two types of indirect evidence: inferential and circumstantial.

Inferential evidence is when one piece of evidence leads the investigators to a new piece of evidence.

inference

www.law.cornell.edu

Inference is a rational conclusion that has been deduced, or proved, from the presented facts.​

Circumstantial evidence is when a found piece of evidence hint at an assumption.

circumstantial evidence

www.law.cornell.edu

Evidence that implies a person committed a crime, (for example, the person was seen running away from the crime scene). There must be a lot of circumstantial evidence accumulated to have real weight.​

​

We have no direct evidence to prove either way, so all we have are inferential and circumstantial evidences for the COVID-19 true origin and to date, the data pulls away from the default position of natural evolution, hence, Collins tempered his statement is 'likely', not absolute, to be of natural cause.

No one can find the animal that gave people covid-19

Here’s your guide to the WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus.

www.technologyreview.com

The scenario the WHO-China team said it considers most probable is the “intermediary” theory, in which a bat virus infected another wild animal that was then caught or farmed for food. The intermediary theory does have the strongest precedents. Not only is there the case of SARS, but in 2012 researchers discovered Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), a deadly lung infection caused by another coronavirus, and quickly traced it to dromedary camels.​

​

The trouble with this hypothesis is that Chinese researchers have not succeeded in finding a “direct progenitor” of this virus in any animal they’ve looked at. Liang said China had tested 50,000 animal specimens, including 1,100 bats in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located. But no luck: a matching virus still hasn’t been found.​

​

The absence of that 'intermediary' agent is inferential that pulls the true cause hypothesis away from the default position of natural evolution. Other types of indirect evidence, either inferential or circumstantial, continues to pull away from that default position of natural evolution.

A piece of evidence is not a proof. But enough evidences will constitute a proof and to date, China does not like the heading of the investigation.

 

[jamahir]

It is a bat virus but released intentionally to make Trump lose election and put down Hong Kong protest.

Please man, the world is much bigger than American two-party dictatorial elections and some protest in Hong Kong.

And are you suggesting that the American Establishment and the Chinese Establishment collaborated in releasing Corona ?

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

There is no evidence it is natural. If virus jumps from animals to humans that often, every time during US election, we'd all be dead. Chinese released it and US media hyped it up to prevent Trump holding rallies in election. Without rallies, Biden wins because he is a bad speaker whereas Trump is an excellent speaker.