THE ORIGINS OF THE CCP VIRUS
What I Felt Was True in January 2020 (and still believe)
You would be forgiven for “following the science” and believing that infected bats magically appeared in Wuhan, China (and nowhere else), infecting the population and starting a plague. After all, the government and Dr. Fauci told you so, as did WHO and other “authorities.” But sadly, science as taught all the way through high school doesn’t encourage critical thinking and generally doesn’t give you the background in biological science to consider challenging what you hear.
But with my background, I couldn’t help but wonder. After all, COVID-19 wasn’t the first virus epidemic originating in China. During a graduate class on “Topics in Biochemistry,” we had one session devoted to science in China. My attention focused on the less-than-ideal protective equipment offered to their scientists. The US had advanced to P-3 and B-3 containment by this point in time: P refers to physical and B to biological. The level implied that we could keep doing better…and we have. We also learned of the power the Chinese government exerted over all aspects of the economy and the insistence on continuing with research that much of the world had shunned. The standards of safety didn’t match most of the world for the workers and the unsuspecting outside population. When the Asilomar convention on genetic research in humans convened, the Chinese did not subscribe to the rules. As the news rolled out, I couldn’t help but remember this, as well as the long delays in reporting on other viruses.
The odd coincidence of their pre-eminent virology lab being located right where this virus first infected people as well as my doubts that the exotic bat represented a favorite food source made me dig deeper. I began to learn about research beginning in 2015 on coronaviruses that infected…wait for it…the same kind of bat supposedly popular in wet markets. No one should be surprised at research into this virus because it is so common. However, the swamp had more secrets to reveal.
I learned about “gain-of-function” (GOF) research; a type of study not performed when I was a graduate student. For those who haven’t learned what this is, it involves increasing the virulence and lethality of pathogens and viruses across different species. It often involves taking a bloodborne virus and making it airborne (and much more easily transmissible). As US scientists and doctors became concerned about this, a large group of them made a request to President Obama to ban this in our country; once he understood the problem, he agreed. However, not every scientist wanted to stop this research, claiming its value in biodefense. For those of you who’ve read/seen “The Stand,” you know that anything you create can (and probably will) escape.
To date, no pandemic has been prevented, nor have there been peer-reviewed articles about how this type of work can help us create countermeasures. Research like this puts everyone at risk. However, governments still express interest, as it has potential to create a weapon.
We’ll probably never know the true story here (the only US scientist on the WHO commission worked on this project), and the veneration of such government figures as Dr. Fauci makes it unlikely the data will ever be discovered. However, let’s put on a novelist’s hat and think how this could work.
Governments still believing in GOF value and well-funded scientists have been conducting this research anyway. If you perform it in a very safe lab under strict rules that include locking down the facility if anything gets out of the secure lab, you might be okay, if you trust those who have access to the deadly virus.) But in a less well-controlled lab, accidents happen. But how can an institute and the government funding it admit to it? If you could get ahead of it and have treatments – the only reasonable use of GOF research – you tell people immediately and stop the progression.
But what if you have nothing to counteract the damage you’re begun. If you admit it, you are legally liable for the damages and death the virus caused. That’s a bad enough excuse to keep everything secret. But what if you have global ambitions to be the leading economy in the world, overtaking the US and in fact, destroying the economies of most global leaders. Would you want to get this problem under control or would it serve your purposes to keep it secret, lie about it and watch the world collapse?
There is evidence that Dr. Fauci’s agency funded some of the dubious research in Wuhan, which makes us co-conspirators in the pandemic. Could anyone there admit to what happened? Beyond the damage to the world’s economy, you have also seen an amazing overreach in government power at all levels, crushing the freedom that made this country great.
The ability to create vaccines quickly means it’s unlikely that this will recur. But the damage has been done. We all need to be knowledgeable about the problem and watchful of its recurrence. Let’s resist any further lockdown or attempt to tell us how to live our lives. We know better now.
