Technology COVID-19 Health Science Epidemiology Pandemic
Richard H. Ebright
Richard H. Ebright

@R_H_Ebright

20 Tweets 16 reads Mar 25, 2023
Twitter
The nine facts about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 that everyone needs to know are as follows:
1) SARS-CoV-2 is related to bat SARS-like coronaviruses from southern China and northern Laos.
2) SARS-CoV-2 entered humans in or near Wuhan in August-November 2019.
3) SARS-CoV-2 entered humans either through a natural accident (just as in the first entry of the original SARS coronavirus into humans, which occurred through natural spillover in rural Guangdong province in 2002)....
...or through a research accident (just as in the second third, fourth, and fifth entries of the original SARS coronavirus into humans, which occurred through a lab accident in Singapore in 2003, a lab accident in Taipei in 2003, and two separate lab accidents in Beijing in 2004)
4) Wuhan is located 1,000 km from the nearest wild bats with SARS-CoV-2-like coronaviruses.
5) Wuhan has labs that, at the start of the pandemic, conducted the world's largest research program on bat SARS-like coronaviruses, possessed the world's largest collection of bat SARS-like coronaviruses, and possessed the world's only sample of a SARS-CoV-2-like coronavirus.
6) In 2016-2018, the Wuhan Institute of Virology constructed a series of novel chimeric SARS-like coronaviruses that combined the spike gene of one bat SARS-like coronavirus with the rest of the genetic information of another bat SARS-like coronavirus....
...and identified viruses that were able to infect and replicate efficiently in human airway cells and that had 10,000x enhanced viral growth and 4x enhanced lethality in mice engineered to display human receptors on cells....
...In other words, in the years before the start of the pandemic, the Wuhan Institute of Virology had taken most of the steps needed to convert a natural bat SARS-like coronavirus to a novel human pandemic pathogen having the properties of SARS-CoV-2.
7) In 2018, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its collaborators proposed to construct an expanded series of novel chimeric SARS-like coronaviruses, this time using newly identified spike genes having affinities for human receptors that ranged from very low to very high; and....
...proposed to insert furin cleavage sites--a feature that is present in SARS-CoV-2 but not in any of the hundreds of other known SARS-like coronaviruses and that is crucial for the high transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2--into SARS-like coronaviruses....
...In other words, just a year before the start of the pandemic, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its collaborators proposed to take the remaining steps needed to convert a natural bat SARS-like coronavirus to a novel human pandemic pathogen having the properties of SARS-CoV-2
8) In 2016-2019, the Wuhan Institute of Virology constructed and characterized SARS-like coronaviruses at biosafety level 2, a level inadequate for work with enhanced potential pandemic pathogens and inadequate to contain a virus having the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2.
9) From the start of the pandemic, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its collaborators have withheld information, misrepresented facts, and obstructed investigation...even though, if not connected to origin, they most easily could have cleared their names though cooperation.
10) A preponderance of evidence, including both the scientific evidence (facts 1-3) and the documentary evidence (facts 4-9), indicates that SARS-CoV-2 likely entered humans through a laboratory accident.
All statements in all posts are demonstrable facts.
Sources for points 4-5 include :
4) Shi Zhengli interview at science.org
5) NIH documents at theintercept.com and republicans-oversight.house.gov; and news stories at theintercept.com; theintercept.com; and theintercept.com
EcoHealth Alliance Conducted Risky Experiments on MERS Virus in China
theintercept.com/2021/10/21/vir…

EcoHealth Alliance Conducted Risky Experiments on MERS Virus in China

Documents released by the NIH contradict previous assertions by EcoHealth Alliance about its experim...
republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/upl…
NIH Documents Provide New Evidence U.S. Funded Gain-of-Function Research in Wuhan
theintercept.com/2021/09/09/cov…

NIH Documents Provide New Evidence U.S. Funded Gain-of-Function Research in Wuhan

U.S.-funded experiment in China posed biosafety risks but did not cause Covid-19 pandemic, scientist...
New Details Emerge About Coronavirus Research at Chinese Lab
theintercept.com/2021/09/06/new…

New Details Emerge About Coronavirus Research at Chinese Lab

More than 900 pages of materials related to U.S.-funded coronavirus research in China were released...
theintercept.com/document/2021/…
science.org/pb-assets/PDF/…
Sources for point 6 include:
6) NIH documents at theintercept.com and republicans-oversight.house.gov; WIV research paper at journals.plos.org; and news stories at theintercept.com; theintercept.com; theintercept.com; and theintercept.com
EcoHealth Alliance Conducted Risky Experiments on MERS Virus in China
theintercept.com/2021/10/21/vir…

EcoHealth Alliance Conducted Risky Experiments on MERS Virus in China

Documents released by the NIH contradict previous assertions by EcoHealth Alliance about its experim...
NIH Bat Coronavirus Grant Report Was Submitted More Than Two Years Late
theintercept.com/2021/10/01/nih…

NIH Bat Coronavirus Grant Report Was Submitted More Than Two Years Late

The unusual timing of a bat coronavirus grant report suggests that an earlier version may have been...
republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/upl…
NIH Documents Provide New Evidence U.S. Funded Gain-of-Function Research in Wuhan
theintercept.com/2021/09/09/cov…

NIH Documents Provide New Evidence U.S. Funded Gain-of-Function Research in Wuhan

U.S.-funded experiment in China posed biosafety risks but did not cause Covid-19 pandemic, scientist...
New Details Emerge About Coronavirus Research at Chinese Lab
theintercept.com/2021/09/06/new…

New Details Emerge About Coronavirus Research at Chinese Lab

More than 900 pages of materials related to U.S.-funded coronavirus research in China were released...
Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus
journals.plos.org/plospathogens/…

Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus

Author summary Increasing evidence has been gathered to support the bat origin of SARS coronavirus (...
theintercept.com/document/2021/…
Sources for points 7-8 include:
7) NIH documents at theintercept.com; DARPA documents at documentcloud.org; and news stories at theintercept.com; theintercept.com; and theintercept.com
8) Shi Zhengli interview at science.org
DEFUSE proposal
documentcloud.org/documents/2106…

DEFUSE proposal

Project DEFUSE: Defusing the Threat of Bat-borne Coronaviruses rÂĄ nae FYI ITH[re oy [ei Hy FEET FET...
NIH Documents Provide New Evidence U.S. Funded Gain-of-Function Research in Wuhan
theintercept.com/2021/09/09/cov…

NIH Documents Provide New Evidence U.S. Funded Gain-of-Function Research in Wuhan

U.S.-funded experiment in China posed biosafety risks but did not cause Covid-19 pandemic, scientist...
New Details Emerge About Coronavirus Research at Chinese Lab
theintercept.com/2021/09/06/new…

New Details Emerge About Coronavirus Research at Chinese Lab

More than 900 pages of materials related to U.S.-funded coronavirus research in China were released...
Leaked Grant Proposal Details High-Risk Coronavirus Research
theintercept.com/2021/09/23/cor…

Leaked Grant Proposal Details High-Risk Coronavirus Research

The proposal, rejected by the U.S. military’s research agency DARPA, describes the insertion of huma...
theintercept.com/document/2021/…
science.org/pb-assets/PDF/…
Sources for point 9 include:
9) WIV research article and erratum at nature.com and nature.com; and news stories at theintercept.com; thebulletin.org; and theintercept.com
FBI Sought Documents Related to U.S.-Funded Coronavirus Research in China
theintercept.com/2022/01/20/cor…

FBI Sought Documents Related to U.S.-Funded Coronavirus Research in China

New records from the National Institutes of Health detail internal conversations involving EcoHealth...
NIH to terminate part of EcoHealth Alliance grant after its Wuhan partners refuse to deliver information on coronavirus studies
thebulletin.org/2022/08/nih-to…

NIH to terminate part of EcoHealth Alliance grant after its Wuhan partners refuse to deliver information on coronavirus studies

The National Institute of Health (NIH) is partially terminating a grant to a nonprofit that worked e...
NIH Urged to Consider Banning Wuhan Institute of Virology From Future Grants
theintercept.com/2023/01/26/cor…

NIH Urged to Consider Banning Wuhan Institute of Virology From Future Grants

The Wuhan lab has continued to stonewall NIH and EcoHealth Alliance on scientific documentation, an...
A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin
nature.com/articles/s4158…

A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin

Nature - Characterization of full-length genome sequences from patients infected with a new coronavi...
nature.com/articles/s4158…
*ten facts

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Technology COVID-19 Health Science Epidemiology Pandemic

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