Physician scientist Dr. Steven Quay (@quay_dr) highlights six reasons COVID-19 is most likely a gain-of-function laboratory leak:
1. Hospital, antibody, and wastewater data indicates the virus was spreading in Wuhan and globally by the Fall of 2019.
"The virus was spreading in Wuhan and around the world in the fall of 2019, months before the first case in the Hunan seafood market. This is supported by 14 observations or evidence."
"The evidence includes the calculation of the time to the most recent common ancestor. Hospital overloads in Wuhan. Antibodies and patients from Italy, Spain, and the U.S. Wastewater samples from Brazil. Sick athletes at the October Wuhan military games. School closings in Wuhan, and dozens of documented patients. This dismisses out of hand the market as the origin."
2. Examination of human infections, animal samples, and environmental specimens from the market shows no infected animals or wildlife vendors.
"With SARS-1, literally 100% of the market animals were infected… None of these data are consistent with an infected animal passing SARS-2 to a human at the market."
3. Events from March 2019, including unusual activities by the Chinese Communist Party and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, suggest a lab-acquired infection had occurred.
"This timeline includes unusual attention from the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a PLA physician soldier being put in charge. Large tender request to repair biosafety equipment. A virus database disappearing in the middle of the night. Large tender requests for a lab security force to 'handle foreign personnel.' Patents for a device to prevent a lab-acquired infection… These events taken together are a classic example of closing the barn door after the horses left."
4. There is no zoonotic evidence, with 96,000 animals testing negative for SARS-CoV-2 and no evidence of posterior diversity in the virus genome. Historical comparisons with SARS-CoV-1 show multiple spillover events, which are absent in SARS-CoV-2.
5. The genome of SARS-CoV-2 has eight synthetic features not found in natural viruses.
"The probability that SARS came from nature based on these features is one in a billion. These features are the backbone, the receptor binding domain, the furin cleavage site, the genetics of the furin cleavage site, the number, location, and pattern of cloning sites that use the Baric cloning method, and the [inaudible] gene…"
6. "These same features were described in a 2018 DARPA grant by WIV and U.S. scientists. With respect to the grant, SARS-2 had the proposed backbone from the proposed reason in China. The proposed adaption to human killing. The proposed diversity from SARS-1. The proposed noseeum cleavage site number, location, and pattern. The proposed human cleavage site at the proposed S1-S2 junction."
What happens if we have these hearings and nothing happens?
"The Wuhan Institute of Virology is testing a NEPA virus in a synthetic clone. This is a U.S. CDC bioterrorism agent that kills three out of four people. A lab leak with an airborne NEPA virus would quickly within weeks disrupt food and energy distribution, fire and police services, and medical care."
"My analysis of this tipping point event is that it would set back civilization about 250 years. The work of this committee is critical. If we now fail to act with the knowledge we have, history, if it can still be recorded, will judge us poorly."
https://x.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1803143702090752279