The new SARS Coronavirus RacCS203 found in Thailand has not been shown to infect humans and is more distant to Covid-19 than Chinese bat SARS Coronaviruses RaTG13 and RmYN02.
Chart comparing Human Covid-19 and the 2003 Human SARS-BJ01
to
Bat CoV and Bat SARS viruses
RaTG13, ZC45 and HKU3-1
The new information from Thailands RacCS203 is very interesting, with a 91.5% match to Covid-19, but the closest matches to Covid-19 are still Professor Shi's RaTG13 (Mojiang Mine virus) at 96.2% and RmYN02 at 93.3% also from the Mojiang Mine area.
A proper investigation of viruses RacCS203, RaTG13, RmYN02 and other new candidates needs to be done including a review of all the lab tests and research etc to help, understand Covid-19 plus, with creating better vaccines and other treatments.
Chinese viruses ZC45 / ZXC21 are almost identical and also close matches to Covid-19 (see chart) and stored in Chinese military research labs.
It is clear that in some way China has played a central role in Covid-19, whether via a natural spill over or some sort of escape from storage in a lab facility.
The Daily Mail quotes the Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine, Temple University, Philadelphia (plus others elsewhere in the US), tracing the start of Covid-19 back to around mid October 2019 and confirmed the 'Chinese viruses seeding epidemics in other countries' of Covid-19.
With earlier Wuhan Covid-19 data samples from December 2019 a better genetic picture could be created to help with vaccine development etc.
Also keep in mind
that the Thai bat coronavirus RacCS203 was not in a lab prior to Covid-19 starting
that the Chinese viruses were all in labs
that RaTG13 was only ever found once in one bat fecal swab sample in 2013 which now no longer exists
that there are suggestions, yet to be disproved by the release of existing medical data and tests from 2012 and 2020, (both confirmed by Prof Shi), that some Mojiang Miners were infected and killed in 2012 by the virus RaTG12.
it has been confirmed the Mojiang Miners became infected in the cave where RaTG13 was later found
that Prof Shi in Nov 2020 confirmed her knowledge
A. that the Mojiang Miners died of a virus and that this knowledge goes back to 2012/13, (which she more or less hid in Feb 2020)
B. that Covid-19 tests were carried out in 2020 on the 2012 Mojiang Miners stored blood etc which she made no mention of being necessary or having been done in her Feb 2020 interviews
Australian Covid-19 vaccine developer Professor Petrovsky "I think that COVID-19 and its origins is one of those areas where unfortunately we have enormous amount of politics overlaid over the science. And so it gets harder to get to the truth in that context."
Prof Shi told the BBC that she is open to "any kind of visit" to rule out that the coronavirus leaked from her laboratory in Wuhan.
However this still has not happened with the WHO investigators just talking to Prof Shi.
According to the BBC Prof Shi won international acclaim for her discovery that the 2003 SARS outbreak, was caused by a virus that probably came from a species of bat in a Yunnan cave.
www.bbc.com
The Daily Mail has quoted scientists as saying
"RacCS203 is thought to be unable to infect people as it can not bind to the ACE2 receptor on human cells, Covid-19's gateway into the body.
However, antibodies circulating in the blood of infected bats and pangolins were found to be effective at neutralising the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
This biological paradox indicates bat-based coronaviruses can not, as standard, infect humans, experts speculate."
It has also been shown in lab tests and computer modelling that Covid-19 does not infect bat tissue.
This leaves the probable alternatives that bat coronaviruses only evolve the ability to infect human cells after first being passed
1. into an intermediate host, such as a pangolin or
2. via gain of function or genetic manipulation lab research such as has been carried out by Prof Shi at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
No Covid-19 intermediate animal host or earlier virus has been found so far, despite China explaining to the WHO investigators that it has tested over 300 types of wild animals and 50,000 domesticated animals for Covid-19
The human gain of function lab processes can be done without any gene editing, by
repeatedly mixing a virus with human tissue in lab dishes, or
via live animals with a similar lung structure to humans, such as ferrets,
so looking natural and leaving no obvious human intervention markers.
Research should be done on both lab and natural origins in China and elsewhere
All countries should release all the data they have on Covid-19 research and the viruses closely related to Covid-19 - such as RaTG13 - including the medical records of tests done on human and animal blood samples etc and other tissue
China should do this as well and include all data from the Mojiang Miners who died in 2012 of an unknown SARS like Coronavirus
This Mojiang Miners information has already unofficially been partly disclosed by researchers in June 2020 who had read and posted the MA and Phd research papers on the Mojiang Miners deaths linking them to a bat coronavirus.
The Phd paper was supervised by George Gao current head of the Chinese CDC, and the paper confirmed testing of human samples and the removal of human glands.
The MA was done by the Miners hospital Doctor after deaths of the infected Miners - and also confirmed this testing providing copies of some tests
The Miners deaths seems to be made even more important by the fact that their blood and other human samples (tissue and glands) were tested and researched at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and elsewhere, both in 2012 and 2020 and because of the connection to George Gao.
Plus Professor Shi also disclosed in a Nov 2020 Addendum that she knew about and searched for the virus related to the Mojiang Miners death, though in the earlier Nature Magazine article in Feb 2020 Prof Shi said the miners died of a fungal infection, which she must have known to be untrue, while she specifically said no coronavirus was involved in the deaths.
It has never been disclosed what coronavirus the Mojiang Miners died of in 2012, though their hospital Dr confirmed in his MA thesis paper title the deaths were believed to be caused by a bat coronavirus contracted in the same Yunnan caves RaTG13 was found in 2013.
For those wanting to read the Phd and MA papers see the link to Drs Latham and Wilsons' research at the end of this post which has the embedded links to the Phd and MA papers
In Nov 2020 Professor Shi admitted that she and others searched for the Miners virus in the area of the RaTG13 caves for many years after 2013, but did not find RaTG13 again or any other virus that killed the Miners. In 2019 RmYN02 was found in the same area
According to an article in the Jewish Press Professor Shi’s team had published their five-year research on surveillance of caves inhabited by multiple species of horseshoe bats in November 2017, just prior to a visit by officials from the US Embassy in 2018, showing the bats they had collected from the cave in Yunnan province were very likely from the same bat population that spawned the SARS coronavirus in 2003.
Searching Yunnan and not finding something does imply that Professor Shi had some idea of the genetic sequence related to both human SARS and the Mojiang Miners virus.
It is clear she was looking to match a wild bat coronavirus and according to the BBC more or less did so for the human 2003 SARS virus
We do know from Professor Shi that RaTG13 was only ever found once in the fecal samples of one bat but this was initially recorded in the gene database GSA as obtained from a bronchial wash process (which would almost certainly have been performed on the Mojiang Miners in 2012) but not a bat in the wild.
This GSA reference was partly changed to fecal swab in 2020 though references to a bronchial wash process remain in the historical record in webarchive.org
Open webarchive links below or view the Twitter snapshot
BIGD - BioProject
BIGD - GSA
NGDC - GSA
NGDC - BioProject
View: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1286327367019839490
We also know extensive advanced gain of function research work was carried out by Professor Shi in Wuhan on her own after the work was banned, between 2014 until 2017, in the USA.
Prof Shi also did gain of function work in conjunction with US bat scientist Prof Ralph Baric and also did work involving Peter Daszak and published joint papers with both men.
Both men hold key positions on the LANCET investigation into Covid-19 and Daszak is on the WHO investigation (Daszak was Wuhan in February 2021 as a lead WHO investigator)
Further Daszak was in communication about what was happening in Wuhan, as early as 1st January 2020, with George Gao Head of Chinese CDC.
Gao's response to Daszak's long message offering help for the SARS like viral outbreak, Daszak had heard about in Wuhan was "Happy New Year"
Interestingly Gao was, on the 1st of January 2020, already discussing by phone the same then unknown SARS like outbreak with another US Professor - world-famous virologist Ian Lipkin
Gao and the Chinese CDC had already received lab tests showing the genetic sequence was a SARS virus but did not share this information until 11th Jan when a Chinese researcher published his results unofficially
If you watch the PBS Frontline Docu from 20 minutes and 20 seconds in you will hear Daszak's own confirmation of his messages with Gao on 1st January 2020 followed by the details from Professor Lipkin of Gao's conversation with Lipkin on 1st Jan 2020.
Both Prof Baric and Peter Daszak seem deeply conflicted as Covid-19 investigators or people reviewing Prof Shi and the WIV
Professor Richard Ebright has noted, “For persons who were directly involved in funding, promoting, and/or performing bat coronavirus research and bat coronavirus gain-of-function research at WIV, avoiding a possible finding of culpability for triggering a pandemic is a powerful motivator.” And Daszak would be at the very top of the list of those involved in funding, promoting and collaborating in that research.
More broadly, as Ebright also notes, Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance has received over $100 million in funding from US government agencies for a variety of virus surveillance and virus gain of function work – the kind of work that could be brought into serious question if Daszak found any evidence it contributed to causing the pandemic.
How did The Lancet manage to overlook such an enormous conflict of interest, Ebright wonders, while Dr Filippa Lentzos, an expert on biological threats at King’s College London, tweeted, “Goodness. I can't imagine a lead investigator with more vested interests!”
View: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1306692420063629313
Perhaps a proper investigation could also explain why Prof Shi did no material research into virus RaTG13 for 7 years after 2013, as she quickly identified the RaTG13 gene sequence and later published work, in 2016.
RaTG13 was shown as very rare, closely related to human SARS and possibly highly capable of causing a human pandemic
Prof Shi's life work centered around finding and researching such rare human pandemic bat coronaviruses, so the lack of interest in this very rare example - RaTG13 -seems unusually strange even unexplicable
It is of note that Prof Shi failed to mention that RaTG13 was originally labelled BtCoV/4991 - GenBank KP876546 - and that her published work used the 4991 label, making the connection less clear to the Mojiang Mine and the miners who died of a suspected bat SARS coronavirus caught in the mine.
Finally a little more on the Covid-19 timeline and origin. The Daily Mail quotes the Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine, Temple University, Philadelphia who used modelling techniques developed in tracking cancer mutations - to trace the evolution of Sars-Cov-2 back to the ancestor genome behind the Covid-19 infections worldwide.
The study dates the Covid-19 ancestor to mid-October to early November 2019. The Daily Mail says these findings are backed up by a study from scientists in California and Arizona.
'All the genetic evidence makes it clear this virus is from China,' said Sergei Pond, one of the Temple paper's authors. 'The pattern of worldwide spread is also consistent with Chinese viruses seeding epidemics in other countries.'
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zzbcG7CRYgQ
www.dailymail.co.uk
www.dailymail.co.uk
Drs Latham and Wilson for MA and Phd on Moijang Miners
www.independentsciencenews.org
Other references
swprs.org
en.m.wikipedia.org
Chart comparing Human Covid-19 and the 2003 Human SARS-BJ01
to
Bat CoV and Bat SARS viruses
RaTG13, ZC45 and HKU3-1
The new information from Thailands RacCS203 is very interesting, with a 91.5% match to Covid-19, but the closest matches to Covid-19 are still Professor Shi's RaTG13 (Mojiang Mine virus) at 96.2% and RmYN02 at 93.3% also from the Mojiang Mine area.
A proper investigation of viruses RacCS203, RaTG13, RmYN02 and other new candidates needs to be done including a review of all the lab tests and research etc to help, understand Covid-19 plus, with creating better vaccines and other treatments.
Chinese viruses ZC45 / ZXC21 are almost identical and also close matches to Covid-19 (see chart) and stored in Chinese military research labs.
It is clear that in some way China has played a central role in Covid-19, whether via a natural spill over or some sort of escape from storage in a lab facility.
The Daily Mail quotes the Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine, Temple University, Philadelphia (plus others elsewhere in the US), tracing the start of Covid-19 back to around mid October 2019 and confirmed the 'Chinese viruses seeding epidemics in other countries' of Covid-19.
With earlier Wuhan Covid-19 data samples from December 2019 a better genetic picture could be created to help with vaccine development etc.
Also keep in mind
that the Thai bat coronavirus RacCS203 was not in a lab prior to Covid-19 starting
that the Chinese viruses were all in labs
that RaTG13 was only ever found once in one bat fecal swab sample in 2013 which now no longer exists
that there are suggestions, yet to be disproved by the release of existing medical data and tests from 2012 and 2020, (both confirmed by Prof Shi), that some Mojiang Miners were infected and killed in 2012 by the virus RaTG12.
it has been confirmed the Mojiang Miners became infected in the cave where RaTG13 was later found
that Prof Shi in Nov 2020 confirmed her knowledge
A. that the Mojiang Miners died of a virus and that this knowledge goes back to 2012/13, (which she more or less hid in Feb 2020)
B. that Covid-19 tests were carried out in 2020 on the 2012 Mojiang Miners stored blood etc which she made no mention of being necessary or having been done in her Feb 2020 interviews
Australian Covid-19 vaccine developer Professor Petrovsky "I think that COVID-19 and its origins is one of those areas where unfortunately we have enormous amount of politics overlaid over the science. And so it gets harder to get to the truth in that context."
Prof Shi told the BBC that she is open to "any kind of visit" to rule out that the coronavirus leaked from her laboratory in Wuhan.
However this still has not happened with the WHO investigators just talking to Prof Shi.
According to the BBC Prof Shi won international acclaim for her discovery that the 2003 SARS outbreak, was caused by a virus that probably came from a species of bat in a Yunnan cave.
Wuhan scientist 'welcomes' visit over lab leak claim - BBC News
A top Chinese scientist addresses claims the coronavirus leaked from her lab in the city of Wuhan.
www.bbc.com
The Daily Mail has quoted scientists as saying
"RacCS203 is thought to be unable to infect people as it can not bind to the ACE2 receptor on human cells, Covid-19's gateway into the body.
However, antibodies circulating in the blood of infected bats and pangolins were found to be effective at neutralising the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
This biological paradox indicates bat-based coronaviruses can not, as standard, infect humans, experts speculate."
It has also been shown in lab tests and computer modelling that Covid-19 does not infect bat tissue.
This leaves the probable alternatives that bat coronaviruses only evolve the ability to infect human cells after first being passed
1. into an intermediate host, such as a pangolin or
2. via gain of function or genetic manipulation lab research such as has been carried out by Prof Shi at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
No Covid-19 intermediate animal host or earlier virus has been found so far, despite China explaining to the WHO investigators that it has tested over 300 types of wild animals and 50,000 domesticated animals for Covid-19
The human gain of function lab processes can be done without any gene editing, by
repeatedly mixing a virus with human tissue in lab dishes, or
via live animals with a similar lung structure to humans, such as ferrets,
so looking natural and leaving no obvious human intervention markers.
Research should be done on both lab and natural origins in China and elsewhere
All countries should release all the data they have on Covid-19 research and the viruses closely related to Covid-19 - such as RaTG13 - including the medical records of tests done on human and animal blood samples etc and other tissue
China should do this as well and include all data from the Mojiang Miners who died in 2012 of an unknown SARS like Coronavirus
This Mojiang Miners information has already unofficially been partly disclosed by researchers in June 2020 who had read and posted the MA and Phd research papers on the Mojiang Miners deaths linking them to a bat coronavirus.
The Phd paper was supervised by George Gao current head of the Chinese CDC, and the paper confirmed testing of human samples and the removal of human glands.
The MA was done by the Miners hospital Doctor after deaths of the infected Miners - and also confirmed this testing providing copies of some tests
The Miners deaths seems to be made even more important by the fact that their blood and other human samples (tissue and glands) were tested and researched at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and elsewhere, both in 2012 and 2020 and because of the connection to George Gao.
Plus Professor Shi also disclosed in a Nov 2020 Addendum that she knew about and searched for the virus related to the Mojiang Miners death, though in the earlier Nature Magazine article in Feb 2020 Prof Shi said the miners died of a fungal infection, which she must have known to be untrue, while she specifically said no coronavirus was involved in the deaths.
It has never been disclosed what coronavirus the Mojiang Miners died of in 2012, though their hospital Dr confirmed in his MA thesis paper title the deaths were believed to be caused by a bat coronavirus contracted in the same Yunnan caves RaTG13 was found in 2013.
For those wanting to read the Phd and MA papers see the link to Drs Latham and Wilsons' research at the end of this post which has the embedded links to the Phd and MA papers
In Nov 2020 Professor Shi admitted that she and others searched for the Miners virus in the area of the RaTG13 caves for many years after 2013, but did not find RaTG13 again or any other virus that killed the Miners. In 2019 RmYN02 was found in the same area
According to an article in the Jewish Press Professor Shi’s team had published their five-year research on surveillance of caves inhabited by multiple species of horseshoe bats in November 2017, just prior to a visit by officials from the US Embassy in 2018, showing the bats they had collected from the cave in Yunnan province were very likely from the same bat population that spawned the SARS coronavirus in 2003.
Searching Yunnan and not finding something does imply that Professor Shi had some idea of the genetic sequence related to both human SARS and the Mojiang Miners virus.
It is clear she was looking to match a wild bat coronavirus and according to the BBC more or less did so for the human 2003 SARS virus
We do know from Professor Shi that RaTG13 was only ever found once in the fecal samples of one bat but this was initially recorded in the gene database GSA as obtained from a bronchial wash process (which would almost certainly have been performed on the Mojiang Miners in 2012) but not a bat in the wild.
This GSA reference was partly changed to fecal swab in 2020 though references to a bronchial wash process remain in the historical record in webarchive.org
Open webarchive links below or view the Twitter snapshot
BIGD - BioProject
BIGD - GSA
NGDC - GSA
NGDC - BioProject
View: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1286327367019839490
We also know extensive advanced gain of function research work was carried out by Professor Shi in Wuhan on her own after the work was banned, between 2014 until 2017, in the USA.
Prof Shi also did gain of function work in conjunction with US bat scientist Prof Ralph Baric and also did work involving Peter Daszak and published joint papers with both men.
Both men hold key positions on the LANCET investigation into Covid-19 and Daszak is on the WHO investigation (Daszak was Wuhan in February 2021 as a lead WHO investigator)
Further Daszak was in communication about what was happening in Wuhan, as early as 1st January 2020, with George Gao Head of Chinese CDC.
Gao's response to Daszak's long message offering help for the SARS like viral outbreak, Daszak had heard about in Wuhan was "Happy New Year"
Interestingly Gao was, on the 1st of January 2020, already discussing by phone the same then unknown SARS like outbreak with another US Professor - world-famous virologist Ian Lipkin
Gao and the Chinese CDC had already received lab tests showing the genetic sequence was a SARS virus but did not share this information until 11th Jan when a Chinese researcher published his results unofficially
If you watch the PBS Frontline Docu from 20 minutes and 20 seconds in you will hear Daszak's own confirmation of his messages with Gao on 1st January 2020 followed by the details from Professor Lipkin of Gao's conversation with Lipkin on 1st Jan 2020.
Both Prof Baric and Peter Daszak seem deeply conflicted as Covid-19 investigators or people reviewing Prof Shi and the WIV
Professor Richard Ebright has noted, “For persons who were directly involved in funding, promoting, and/or performing bat coronavirus research and bat coronavirus gain-of-function research at WIV, avoiding a possible finding of culpability for triggering a pandemic is a powerful motivator.” And Daszak would be at the very top of the list of those involved in funding, promoting and collaborating in that research.
More broadly, as Ebright also notes, Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance has received over $100 million in funding from US government agencies for a variety of virus surveillance and virus gain of function work – the kind of work that could be brought into serious question if Daszak found any evidence it contributed to causing the pandemic.
How did The Lancet manage to overlook such an enormous conflict of interest, Ebright wonders, while Dr Filippa Lentzos, an expert on biological threats at King’s College London, tweeted, “Goodness. I can't imagine a lead investigator with more vested interests!”
View: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1306692420063629313
Perhaps a proper investigation could also explain why Prof Shi did no material research into virus RaTG13 for 7 years after 2013, as she quickly identified the RaTG13 gene sequence and later published work, in 2016.
RaTG13 was shown as very rare, closely related to human SARS and possibly highly capable of causing a human pandemic
Prof Shi's life work centered around finding and researching such rare human pandemic bat coronaviruses, so the lack of interest in this very rare example - RaTG13 -seems unusually strange even unexplicable
It is of note that Prof Shi failed to mention that RaTG13 was originally labelled BtCoV/4991 - GenBank KP876546 - and that her published work used the 4991 label, making the connection less clear to the Mojiang Mine and the miners who died of a suspected bat SARS coronavirus caught in the mine.
Finally a little more on the Covid-19 timeline and origin. The Daily Mail quotes the Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine, Temple University, Philadelphia who used modelling techniques developed in tracking cancer mutations - to trace the evolution of Sars-Cov-2 back to the ancestor genome behind the Covid-19 infections worldwide.
The study dates the Covid-19 ancestor to mid-October to early November 2019. The Daily Mail says these findings are backed up by a study from scientists in California and Arizona.
'All the genetic evidence makes it clear this virus is from China,' said Sergei Pond, one of the Temple paper's authors. 'The pattern of worldwide spread is also consistent with Chinese viruses seeding epidemics in other countries.'
New coronavirus linked to SARS-CoV-2 is discovered in bats in Thailand
SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19, shares 91.5 per cent of its genetic code with that of the newly-identified virus in Thailand, which has been called RacCS203.
IAN BIRRELL: Virus 'definitely' began in China, say US scientists
IAN BIRRELL: The coronavirus pandemic definitely started in China, according to a World Health Organisation study which traced the 'mother' of all Covid-19 infections to the country.
Coronavirus: Bat scientists find new evidence
Experts say coronaviruses related to Sars-CoV-2 may be found in bats across many parts of Asia.
www.bbc.com
Drs Latham and Wilson for MA and Phd on Moijang Miners
A Proposed Origin for SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 Pandemic - Independent Science News | Food, Health and Agriculture Bioscience News
We propose that SARS-CoV-2, the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, likely derives from a disease outbreak in a mine in Yunnan province, China, in 2012.
www.independentsciencenews.org
Other references
On the Origin of SARS Coronavirus 2
Virologist Jonathan Latham and geneticist Allison Wilson have proposed a new hypothesis for the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the Covid-19 pandemic.
swprs.org
RmYN02 - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Last edited:
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