from The Waking Times:

Researchers have still not been able to identify the original source of the COVID-19 coronavirus. When the outbreak began, initial reports suggested that the virus jumped from an animal to a human in a Wuhan meat market because many of the first cases were connected with the market in some way.

Scientists are still divided on this theory, but some studies have suggested that there were a significant number of early patients who had no contact with the market, and that it could have been spreading silently among citizens of Wuhan before it entered the crowded market where it had an opportunity to infect more hosts and spread more widely. This is one of the numerous different theories that experts have been debating in the months since the virus was officially recognized.

Kristian Andersen, an evolutionary biologist at the Scripps Research Institute, believes that this theory is “entirely plausible,” and has estimated that the virus could have infected its first victim as far back as October 1st, based on a study of 27 genomes from early patients. Although news of the virus did not reach the local or international media until early January, rumors of a SARS-like illness were spreading on social media, and among medical professionals, all through the month of December.

For some reason, which is still not entirely clear, the Chinese government did its best to prevent news of the outbreak from reaching the public, and even went so far as to silence some of the medical workers who tried to warn the world about the virus after treating the first patients. Some journalists have also been arrested for making reports about the virus that the government did not approve of. The Chinese government’s behaviour, and its response in the early days of the outbreak, has raised suspicions among many people both in China and abroad.

There are a few journalists, politicians and even some scientists who believe that the coronavirus could have originated in a bio lab in Wuhan. A paper published and later deleted by Chinese scientists Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, said that the virus “probably” originated from one of two labs in Wuhan.

“We noted two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus in Wuhan, one of which was only 280 meters from the seafood market. We briefly examined the histories of the laboratories and proposed that the coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory,” the paper said.

Although the report was deleted, it did give some insight into actual security problems that the labs in Wuhan had previously experienced. The report highlights the cases of workers who were quarantined or infected after accidents in the lab, including one researcher who isolated himself for two weeks after blood from a diseased bat got on his skin, according to the Latin Times. The same worker was reportedly quarantined on another occasion after a bat urinated on him.

The two labs discussed in the report are the Wuhan Center for Disease Control (WHCDC), which is located less than 300 meters away from the market at the center of the outbreak, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is about 20 miles away. Due to the secrecy surrounding these sites, the level of cooperation between the two facilities is unclear, but according to lab workers, both facilities were experimenting with dangerous pathogens, including mutated coronaviruses in bats.

Suspicions surround the WHCDC lab because it is extremely close to the epicenter and had routine security breaches. Meanwhile, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, despite being a bit further away, is considered a biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) facility, which is the highest level of biocontainment, tasked with handling the most dangerous pathogens in the world, and has been extremely controversial since it opened in 2017.

In BSL-4 labs, researchers can tweak or combine deadly viruses to create mutated strains of the original illness. A 2013 report in Nature indicated that scientists in China were creating hybrid viruses in labs.

“A team of scientists in China has created hybrid viruses by mixing genes from H5N1 and the H1N1 strain behind the 2009 swine flu pandemic, and showed that some of the hybrids can spread through the air between guinea pigs,” the article revealed.

The results of the hybrid virus experiment were published in the journal Science. Such experiments are usually intended to teach scientists more about certain illnesses so they can be treated and prevented better, but other research has involved intentionally making viruses even more deadly than they already were.

Research for SARS, which is very similar to the new coronavirus, only requires a BSL-3 lab to comply with international standards, so studies on this type of virus could have been taking place at either one of the city’s labs, and there is also significant evidence that the Chinese government could be ignoring many of these standards.

The paper also notes that the WCDC facility is adjacent to Union Hospital, where the first group of doctors were infected during the outbreak, which led the researchers to speculate that the virus could have entered the population through the hospital, but they cautioned that it was too early to tell for sure, and said that more research is needed before making any solid conclusions.

Read More @ WakingTimes.com