The WIV first opened back in 1956, but it was in 2003 that key events would shape its role in the build up to the COVID-19 pandemic. The year 2003 marked the first SARS outbreak that only claimed 774 lives worldwide, which serves as a testament to the fact that unlike COVID-19, SARS was not well adapted to infect humans. A young researcher at the WIV, named Shi Zhengli, took an interest in new and potentially dangerous bat research. With help from U.S. government researchers, Shi would learn how to isolate and manipulate those viruses, and later become the director of the WIV. The European Union drew a plan to build the biosafety level 4 lab at the WIV. This was the beginning of a 16-year-long transfer of critical technology and Western knowledge to China’s WIV. From 2005–2010, Shi focused her research and sampling on coronaviruses from horseshoe bats, which were found in a cave and brought back to the lab for further analysis and experiments.
In 2007, Shi reached a milestone on how to manipulate bat viruses to specifically infect human cells. Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was warned in 2009 of possible bioweapon research being conducted at the WIV. A year earlier, Dr. Anthony Fauci had awarded Peter Daszak’s organization its first grant to conduct bat coronavirus experiments. At the time, Daszak was already collaborating with Shi. Fauci continued to promote the benefits of engaging in dangerous coronavirus research, writing for the Washington Post in 2011 “A flu virus risk worth taking.” The Washington Post article notes that researchers had created a laboratory virus that “does not occur in nature” and that “important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory.” Fauci continued to promote this dangerous research and make it known to government agencies and leaders. He claimed that the risk benefit ratio of this research tipped toward benefiting society.
This episode goes on to cover details about a Chinese mine where workers became seriously sick with a coronavirus illness. This mine then became the center for collecting research that was sent back to the WIV for storage and experiments. Two miners died, and 4 tested positive for antibodies of a COVID-19-like illness. Another miner died at a later date. The deaths were concluded to have resulted from a SARS-like coronavirus that originated from bats. This was disclosed in a thesis that wasn’t discovered until 2020. A Fauci-funded study later produced from the WIV centered around this first successful isolation of a live coronavirus from horseshoe bat fecal samples.
In 2015, physical construction of the WIV biosafety level 4 lab was completed. This lab was built in collaboration with the French government. However, France had become increasingly concerned over the potential for bioweapon research coming from the lab. The French certification firm refused to certify the new project, and to supply the Chinese with deadly viruses and antivirus suits that could be used for bioweapon research. Despite this, the activities at the WIV, known as gain of function research, continued to take place. The term gain of function refers to biological research that is aimed at increasing the virulence and lethality of pathogens and viruses. It is government funded, and its main focus is on enhancing pathogens’ ability to infect different species and to increase their deadly impact as airborne pathogens and viruses. Gain of function research is meant to be conducted for biodefense purposes.
This gain of function research raised concern in the scientific community, prompting warnings about the risk that bat coronavirus experiments at the WIV could start a pandemic. An article in 2015 questioned possible lab leaks from the WIV and whether or not information regarding the research would remain open and transparent in China. These warnings did little to stop the experiments, even though research papers published at the time showed that some of the viruses may “have high potential to infect human cells, without the necessity for an intermediate host.”
In 2018, a blueprint proposal was drawn up to create a COVID-like virus in the WIV. It detailed how they could make the viruses more transmissible to humans. The virus that emerged a year later in Wuhan had the exact same features that were outlined in the proposal, with defining aspects that set it apart from any other virus. These features were a source of mystery to scientists at the beginning of the pandemic, however, given the host of new information coming to light, many mysteries of the COVID-19 pandemic are now becoming more clear.
Share this article, and join Carlson and Mahncke for Part Two, where they will continue to examine the events of the pandemic that unfolded in Wuhan and the world, as well as the ongoing cover-up of the virus’s true origin.
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