Origin of Covid-19: Fresh evidence for the "lab-leak" theory (2021)

Hi and welcome to the Snapshot Channel. My name is Armstrong Lazenby and we'll be talking about the origin of COVID-19. This is fresh evidence reviving a lab leak theory. In the face of global calls to trace the origins of the pandemic, President Joe Biden, who has been keeping a low profile, suddenly turned around and issued a high-profile statement at the end of May, demanding that the relevant department deliver a report within three months to confirm the origin of the virus and whether it was leaked from a laboratory in China. The previous US President Donald Trump has always been supportive of a lab leak theory, yet the Democratic Party and the mainstream media have tried their best to debunk and extinguish discussions about the theory, calling it a conspiracy, until now. On May 26, Biden ordered 17 national laboratories run by the Department of Energy to assist the intelligence community in a 90-day sprint to reach a more definite conclusion on the origins of COVID-19 virus and examine whether the coronavirus had been leaked from a laboratory in China. A White House official told CNN that the labs were chosen because of their ability to crunch a massive amount of data. The government did not disclose exactly what type of data was submitted for analysis, but experts say it was likely previously collected intelligence such as intercepted communications or biological evidence. We want science to be a big part of this, White House officials told CNN. We're going to use all of our intelligence and all the resources of the scientific community to try to get to the bottom of this issue. Biden also urged US intelligence agencies and allied intelligence agencies to seek new information to whether China covered up lab leaks. Biden said he wanted to press China to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence. Senator for Arkansas Tom Cotton said officials in Beijing have not been forthcoming about how the pandemic began. He said we should insist that they come clean and let us see clearly what happened in the laboratories in Wuhan. He also believes that is better late than never, but nowhere near enough. In the four months since President Biden took office, two of his policy initiatives towards China have been relatively low-key, one of which is the tracing of the coronavirus outbreak. At the recently concluded annual meeting of the World Health Organization, the Biden administration asked the WHO to conduct a more transparent international investigation into the origin of COVID-19. According to Fox News, on May 26, the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Armed Control under the direction of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had initially launched an investigation into the origin of coronavirus to determine whether the virus was leaked from China's top virus research lab, Wuhan Institute of Virology, but the investigation was halted after the Biden administration took office. The Biden administration claims that they closed the investigation because they were concerned about the quality of work and evidence. Recently, David Asher, who led the state's department coronavirus investigation, which was stopped by Biden, revealed in public claim that the wife of a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology died of a mysterious virus-like illness in December 2019, adding to further weight to charges that the COVID-19 pandemic may have started in a Chinese lab. In fact, Trump has long accepted the theory of a lab leak. Perhaps out of hostility towards Trump, the mainstream U.S. and academia mocked this possibility, calling it a perverse conspiracy theory. Just before the David Asher story broke, we noted that the mainstream media quickly changed its coverage on the lab leak theory, giving it more confidence and credence. In an interview with Newsmax TV on 25th of May, former U.S. President Donald Trump said this. I think it was obvious to smart people that's where it came from. I have no doubt about it. I had no doubt about it. I was criticized by the press because China has a lot of people taken care of. They took care of Hunter. They took care of Joe. They took care of everybody, didn't they? And people didn't want to say China. Usually they blame it on Russia. It's always Russia, Russia, Russia. In April 2020, the Australian government publicly stated that all countries should support and have an obligation to investigate the source and transmission of the virus. Australian Foreign Minister Maurice Payne said that the investigation would need to be conducted independently of the WHO, and that it should include the origin of the virus in China, the methods used to deal with it, and information that China has made available to the public. But the proposal angered Beijing, with the previous Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zheng Shuang accusing Australia of allowing the U.S. in political maneuvering, and warned Australia will face economic ramifications. Despite attempts to lobby leaders in France, Germany, and the U.K. to support the investigation independent of the WHO, Australia was not very successful. Subsequently, under pressure, WHO repeatedly requested to join China's ongoing investigation into the source of the virus, but was refused by Beijing. It wasn't until January 14, 2021, a 10-member WHO international expert team was allowed to enter China for investigation. On March 30, 2021, a joint China-WHO study on the traceability of the coronavirus was released, concluding that the possibility of a virus leak from the Wuhan laboratory was extremely low. However, contrary to his usual attitude, WHO Director-General Tedros publicly criticized the Chinese authorities for not providing enough information to international experts, and he called for a further investigation into whether the leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology triggered the outbreak. Meanwhile, the governments of 14 countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Norway, have accused China of obstructing the work of international experts in their investigations and lacking credibility in their findings. After Western leaders, including the United States, called for a new investigation into the origin of the virus at the WHO's annual meeting in May this year, Beijing officials refused, saying they would not participate in any further investigation by the WHO. After Western leaders, including the United States, called for a new investigation into the origin of the virus at the WHO's annual meeting in May this year, Beijing officials refused, saying they would not participate in any further investigation by the WHO. A Facebook spokesperson told political news site Politico on May 26th that the social media platform would no longer delete posts claiming that the coronavirus is man-made or manufactured, acknowledging a new debate about the origin of the virus. The announcement comes after Facebook announced in February that it had expanded the list of misleading health claims to be removed from its platform, including those claiming that the coronavirus is man-made or artificially created posts. U.S. social media companies have faced intense pressure from Congressional Democrats to do more to combat misinformation about the virus throughout the pandemic. U.S. social media companies have faced intense pressure from Congressional Democrats to do more to combat misinformation about the virus throughout the pandemic, and House members pulled the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Google for hearings on the matter in March. Now Facebook's move marks the first major sign that the prominent social media company is re-examining these rules as the lab leak theory gains traction, but Twitter and YouTube's spokespeople have not made corresponding moves. The Wall Street Journal reported on May 23 that three researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology in November 2019 developed serious illnesses and went to the hospital for medical treatment with symptoms consistent with the coronavirus infection, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report. The details of the intelligence goes beyond the State Department briefing released in the last days of the Trump administration, the report says. The report discloses the number of researchers who became ill, the duration of the illness, and their hospital visits. In fact, on January 15, just five days before the Biden administration took office on January 20, the Pompeo-led U.S. State Department released a fact sheet on the activities at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The fact sheet says that the U.S. does not yet know the origin of the virus, but it could be a result of an accident at the lab. The fact sheet calls for further key areas. Number one, illnesses inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Several researchers within the Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill in the fall of 2019, which was before the first confirmed case of coronavirus. They had symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and common seasonal diseases. This is contrary to the claims by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Senior researcher claims that there was zero infection among the lab staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses. Secondly, it is important to investigate the research conducted by Wuhan Institute of Virology. Since at least 2016, Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers have conducted experiments involving a bat coronavirus, namely RATG1-3, and showed no signs of stopping before the COVID-19 outbreak. RATG1-3 is the closest coronavirus to COVID-19 at a 96.2% similarity. After the SARS outbreak in 2003, the Wuhan Institute of Virology became the focus of international coronavirus research and has been studying animals including mice, bats, and pangolins ever since. Thirdly, to investigate the secret military activities of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Although the research unit may appear to be a civilian institution from the outside, the United States has determined that the institute has collaborated with the Chinese military on publications and classified projects. Since 2017, the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been conducting classified research on behalf of the Chinese military, including animal testing in its laboratories. That is, this last fact sheet from the Trump administration's US State Department has made public that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has had sick workers in the fall of 2019, one month before Beijing announced the discovery of the first case, and that the Chinese Communist Party is keeping this highly secret in an attempt to completely suppress the suspicion of a spreading virus at the institute. Regarding the seriousness of the Pompeo-led State Department's report, former Deputy National Secretary Advisor Matthew Pottinger told the press on February 23, 2021, the State Department's fact sheet was a very carefully crafted statement. It was carefully crafted to avoid overstating the case made in the statement. The document was read by every branch of the State Department before it was released, and it was scrutinized by national security, intelligence, and health and human services personnel. This was not a haphazard set of allegations that were laid out in the statement. Regarding the seriousness of the Pompeo-led State Department's report, former Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger told the press on February 23, 2021, the State Department's fact sheet was a very carefully crafted statement. It was carefully crafted to avoid overstating the case made in the statement. The document was read by every branch of the State Department before it was released, and it was scrutinized by national security, intelligence, and health and human services personnel. This was not a haphazard set of allegations that were laid out in that statement. Unfortunately, that fact sheet was dismissed by the mainstream media at the time and did not generate much public reaction. Anthony Fauci is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a top infectious disease expert, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and the President's Chief Medical Advisor. During the pandemic, he served as the public health spokesperson for the office of the President. In 2020, Fauci and the Trump administration disagreed sharply over the medical community's discussion of the origin of coronavirus. Fauci publicly downplayed the lab leak theory, arguing that the White House's obsession with the origin of the virus and its attribution to Chinese responsibility was a meaningless political hype and never-ending waste of time. In an interview with National Geographic on May 4, 2020, Fauci has said that the existing research shows that the coronavirus evolved naturally and was never born in a laboratory in Wuhan. He accused lab leak theory supporters of conspiracy. Due to Fauci's repeated public opposition to the Trump administration's handling of the epidemic, he has been widely praised in the Chinese state media for his professionalism and courage to speak the truth. At the same time, Fauci's political attitude was also greatly praised by Biden. But recently, Fauci's attitude has suddenly changed. In an interview on May 24, Fauci publicly said, I don't believe the virus came from nature, and I think we should continue to investigate what happened in China until we do our best to figure out what happened. This is a huge contrast to his adamant views from a year ago about the virus coming from nature. Fauci's comments immediately drew heavy criticism from the Chinese media. In an emotionally charged article, the state Chinese newspaper Global Times accused Fauci of betraying science and Chinese scientists. It has been revealed that he helped to fund risky research at the Wuhan lab through a US$600,000 grant given by the US National Institutes of Health for work on bat coronaviruses. A series of emails from Fauci has been released under the Freedom of Information Act and shows that Fauci has been informed very early in 2020 that COVID-19 exhibited characteristics that suggested it could have been genetically altered in a lab. There were also email exchanges where he's trying to figure out whether he could be responsible or whether the National Institutes of Health could be responsible for funding the research that might have created the virus that has leaked. It makes people wonder if this could be one of the reasons he was so adamant about the virus originating from natural sources and wanted to discourage further investigations into the lab lake theory. Recently there has been speculation by the exiled Chinese billionaire and whistleblower Guo Wenhui that one of the reasons for Fauci's changes of attitudes could be that fresh evidence has been presented to US government by a very senior researcher from the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He was initially hiding in Europe and later arrived in the US. In his possession are large amounts of explosive evidence relating to the origins and making of the COVID-19 virus. The scientist's identity has not been revealed so far. In an interview with Breitbart News on June 1, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that the role of Dr Anthony Fauci in this gain-of-function research of the virus should definitely be thoroughly investigated. Gain-of-function research is where virologists create new viruses that are more transmissible and more lethal. In a 2012 paper Fauci argued that the benefits of gain-of-function research outweigh pandemic risk. I think this has been a disaster what has happened. China has covered it up. They need to be held accountable but the bureaucrats in the United States also need to be held accountable Because of Fauci's official role as the Biden administration's chief medical advisor, many Republican members of Congress believe Fauci is incompetent and should be removed. On May 7 of this year, The Weekend Australian reported that a 2015 report written by Chinese scientists from the People's Liberation Army and senior CCP public health officials discussed weaponizing the SARS virus, the document which was obtained by U.S. State Department officials last May titled Unnatural Origins of SARS and Genetic Weapons of Coronaviruses. The article says that the SARS virus heralds a new era of genetic weapons that can be artificially manipulated to become an emerging human disease virus and then weaponized and released in an unprecedented manner. The report also states that World War III will be a biological war and that the core of victory will be bioweapons. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute's National Defence University tracking system found that 10 of the report's 18 authors were associated with the fourth military medical university, the Air Force Medical University in Xi'an and were CCP military scientists and biochemical weapons experts. Executive director for ASPI Peter Jennings said that under Mr. Xi's increasing emphasis on civil-military fusion, China's biological research in coronaviruses could be weaponized. There is no clear distinction for research capability because where it's used offensively or defensively is not a decision these scientists would take, he said. If you're building skills ostensibly to protect your military from a biological attack, you're at the same time giving your military a capacity to use these weapons offensively. You can't separate the two. In another opinion piece he wrote for The Australian, he said something else we should be clear about is that once the virus was released, the CCP instantly weaponized its use. It allowed international flights out of Wuhan for weeks while countries did it about closing borders. Considering the extent the Chinese government tried to cover up the entire issue made it even more plausible the virus could have been the result of a lab leak. As revealed by RFI, Wuhan Institute of Virology is currently under military control. RFI reported that Major General Chen Wei, China's chief expert on biological and chemical weapons defense, has recently taken over the Wuhan P4 virus laboratory, revealing possible military ties. China analyst Chen Xiangyong commented that with the epidemic already spreading throughout the country, it did not make sense for Chen Wei, a person of such rank and division, to Wuhan to take over this ordinary civilian research institute after the city was closed. Therefore, it can be speculated that the Wuhan Institute of Virology not only has a significant relationship with the outbreak of the epidemic but also has close cooperation with the military. Perhaps some of the research does relate to biochemical weapons being developed by the military. On June 4, Sherry Markson from The Australian revealed a report that a Chinese decorated military scientist Zhou Yusen, who conducted the research in conjunction with the Wuhan Institute, the University of Minnesota, and the New York Blood Center, was the first to file a patent for a COVID-19 vaccine on February 24 last year. Nikolay Petrovsky, a medical researcher at Flinders University, said it left open the possibility that Chinese scientists were working on a vaccine before authorities publicly admitted there was a coronavirus outbreak. This gives more credence to the lab leak theory. In a bizarre twist, Zhou died under unexplained circumstances in May last year. While he was an award-winning military scientist, there was no reports paying tribute to his life. His death was only mentioned in passing in a Chinese media report two months later. Five eye intelligence agencies are treating his death as unusual and is making investigations as a line of inquiry under the new probe into the origins of COVID-19 launched by Zhou Biden. Whilst under military control, the Wuhan Institute of Virology is as if covered by an invisible ball. It is also possible all traces of the virus origin has been destroyed and researchers involved have been incarcerated and or threatened. The world may never find out where the virus truly originated. Thanks for watching and let us know what your thoughts are on the origins of the virus. Is it man-made or is it natural? Please leave your comments below and don't forget to click subscribe and like on our videos. Thank you.