[ad_1]
published:
updated:
Two years ago, US diplomats. USA They raised security alarms after a visit to the Wuhan laboratory.
They specifically pointed out the risk that bat coronavirus research could cause a pandemic, according to the Washington Post.
The United States is now reported to be investigating whether the virus spread from the laboratory by mistake.
The coronavirus that causes covid-19 began to spread in the multi-billion dollar Chinese city of Wuhan before the end of the year.
Since then, however, information about the lab in the city has flourished in the weeds of the Internet. According to some conspiracy theorists, the virus is a biological weapon that China would have deliberately spread.
At the same time, several researchers have delayed the data. After the analyzes of the genetic mass of the virus, they have concluded that it probably arose in nature and not by the human hand.
Theory: mistakenly spread
However, let’s establish one thing first:
It was not the aforementioned conspiracy theory that American diplomats warned in their telegrams home in Washington two years ago.
Wuhan Institute of Virology.
However, various media outlets, including CNN and NBC, now claim that the United States intelligence service is investigating another possible scenario: that the virus was collected from bats for investigation and then accidentally spread from the laboratory in Wuhan.
CNN sources emphasize that there is no evidence and that the theory is one of several that are being investigated for the origin of the virus.
“We are doing a full investigation of everything we can to find out how this virus could spread, spread around the world and now it has caused so much tragedy, so much death, here in the United States and around the world,” said the Minister of Relations. Exteriors Mike Pompeo. to Fox News on Wednesday, AFP says.
Trump: “Listen to the story more and more”
Donald Trump this week made several notable statements that shifted the focus of criticism of the White House crown administration, including the freezing of United States payments to WHO.
On Wednesday, he also commented on the details of an ongoing investigation in the Wuhan laboratory.
– We hear that story more and more. The United States is conducting a very thorough investigation, he said.
Photo: AP TT NEWS AGENCY
The President of the United States, Donald Trump.
If the government’s statements about the Wuhan investigation appear fuzzy, the Washington Post’s details of the diplomats’ previous warnings are even more detailed.
On Tuesday, the foreign policy columnist for the magazine Josh Rogin wrote that the laboratory was visited by US officials on several occasions in early 2018. The delegation was led by Jamison Foot, Wuhan’s Consul General, and research adviser Rick Switzer. and health of the embassy in Beijing.
When they were last there, on March 27 of that year, the laboratory published an English text on its website about the visit. However, it was removed last week, according to the Washington Post.
The laboratory is close to the market.
The laboratory is called the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Wiv) and is close to the animal market that China early identified as the likely source of the virus.
In 2015, the laboratory received the highest international safety rating for biological research, BSL-4.
Photo: AP TT NEWS AGENCY
Scientists work in a laboratory in Wuhan.
However, American diplomats were concerned about what they saw. According to the Washington Post, the two diplomatic bulletins sent home to the Department of Foreign Affairs warn of security and leadership deficiencies in Wiv.
The first of the telegrams, read by Josh Rogin, mentions in particular that the plant’s investigation into the bat coronavirus poses a potential risk of a SARS-like pandemic.
Bats trapped in the cave
The diplomats met, among others, with the project manager, Shi Zhengli, who for many years investigated the coronavirus in bats. In November 2017, just before the Americans’ visit, he had published a study showing that horseshoe bats trapped in a cave in Yunnan province likely came from the same population that spread the Sars virus in 2003.
According to the Washington Post, Chinese investigators had received assistance from a laboratory in Texas and other American organizations. Now they wanted more help, something the visiting diplomats recommended with reference to the risks. But the United States government never decided on such additional assistance, the newspaper said.
Telegrams have been circulating in the White House for the past two months, according to Josh Rogin. The renewed interest in them should inevitably be seen in light of the ongoing information war in which the United States and China blame each other for the crown eruption.
Shi Zhengli and others in the laboratory have categorically denied the spread of the new coronavirus. On February 3, she and her team published a study in the journal Nature where they were the first to determine the origin of the virus in bats.
published:
