There's an almost unanimous agreement amongst members of the intelligence community: it's becoming more and more probable that the coronavirus started in a laboratory in Wuhan. It is believed that China was attempting to "demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States."
Of course, Yuan Zhiming, the Director of the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, told CGTN, a regime-owned news outlet, that the idea is a "conspiracy theory."
"I can tell you for sure, none of our students, retirees or any of our staff has been infected," Zhiming explained. "A group of staff members chose to stay in Wuhan during the lockdown, which guaranteed that our work was in full swing during the Chinese New Year break."
The director said he's unable to quantify how many teams are actively working on researching the coronavirus because the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which houses the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, is all hands on deck. Every single person is reportedly focused on studying various aspects of this particular virus. Some are focused on vaccine development while others are focused on the origin and general characteristics of the Wuhan coronavirus.
Despite that, Zhiming said it's not possible the virus started in the labs because of safety precautions that are taken.
"As people who carry out viral studies, we clearly know what kind of research is going on at the institute and how the institute manages viruses and samples," Zhiming said. "As we said early on, there's no way this virus came from us. We have a strict regulatory regiment. We have a code of conduct for research so we are confident of that."
When asked about the reports stating the coronavirus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the director became angry.
"Why are there rumors? Because the Institute of Virology and the P4 laboratory are in Wuhan, people can't help but make associations, which I think is understandable. But it's bad when some are deliberately trying to mislead people," he explained.
Specifically, the director referenced United States Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and The Washington Post's reporting saying the virus originated in his lab. He said that narrative is "pure speculation."
Interestingly enough, Zhiming said he hasn't come across any academic journals or reports that definitively say it's possible for a virus to be man-made in a lab. He believes there isn't a "human capacity" that could create this virus.
The worst part of this whole thing, however, is Zhiming said his lab has been transparent about the Wuhan coronavirus, specifically in coordination with the World Health Organization.
"In accordance with the National Health Commission, we share the whole geonome sequence with the WHO, which laid a good foundation for countries around the world to confirm the testing method [in the] early stage, including the design of ... vaccines," he explained. "We have actively communicated with the WHO, as well as the Food and Agricultural Organization to report on the latest reports of animal model research and development."
If China was so transparent, why did it take them almost a week to bring the Wuhan coronavirus to the world's attention? If the WHO had the globe's best interest at heart, why did they parrot the Chinese regime's talking points, especially that the virus wasn't transmitted from human-to-human?
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