TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — As many experts question the veracity of China's statistics for the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Tencent over the weekend seems to have inadvertently released what is potentially the actual number of infections and deaths, which were astronomically higher than official figures.
On late Saturday evening (Feb. 1), Tencent, on its webpage titled "Epidemic Situation Tracker", showed confirmed cases of novel coronavirus (2019nCoV) in China as standing at 154,023, 10 times the official figure at the time. It listed the number of suspected cases as 79,808, four times the official figure.
The number of cured cases was only 269, well below the official number that day of 300. Most ominously, the death toll listed was 24,589, vastly higher than the 300 officially listed that day.
Moments later, Tencent updated the numbers to reflect the government's "official" numbers that day. Netizens noticed that Tencent has on at least three occasions posted extremely high numbers, only to quickly lower them to government-approved statistics.
Netizens also noticed that each time the screen with the large numbers appears, it shows a comparison with the previous day's data which demonstrates a "reasonable" incremental increase, much like comparisons of official numbers. This has led some netizens to speculate that Tencent has two sets of data, the real data and "processed" data.
Some are speculating that a coding problem could be causing the real "internal" data to accidentally appear. Others believe that someone behind the scenes is trying to leak the real numbers.
However, the "internal" data held by Beijing may not reflect the true extent of the epidemic. According to multiple sources in Wuhan, many coronavirus patients are unable to receive treatment and die outside of hospitals.
A severe shortage of test kits also leads to a lower number of diagnosed cases of infection and death. In addition, there have been many reports of doctors being ordered to list other forms of death instead of coronavirus to keep the death toll artificially low.
RECOMBINATION technology has been in use in molecular virology since the 1980’s. The structure of the 2019-NCoV virus genome provides a very strong clue on the likely origin of the virus.
Unlike other related coronaviruses, the 2019-nCoV virus has a unique sequence about 1,378 bp (nucleotide base pairs) long that is not found in related coronaviruses.
Looking at the phylogenetic tree recently published derived using all the full genome sequence, we see the 2019-nCoV virus does not have clear monophyletic support given the bootstrap value of 75 (Fig 1).
Close-up on Bootstrap value of 75 for available 2019-nCoV from Lu et al., 2020 The Lancet article [Full Text]
There is no doubt that there is a novel sequence in 2019-nCoV; we confirmed this via sequence alignment. Here’s the DOT plot:
The gap in the line shows a lack of sequence homology beween the most similar bat coronavirus and 2019-nCoV. The inserted sequence, which should not be there is here:
A database search by the first team to study and publish the whole genome sequence for the origins of the inserted sequence turned up no hits (Ji et al., 2020). They conducted a codon-bias analysis which led them to speculate that perhaps there had been a recombination event between a coronavirus in snakes with a coronavirus from bats (Ji et al., 2020). [Full Text]
This led to criticism on Wired(3) with quote dismissing the snake origin hypothesis as lacking evidence. There is, however, clear evidence that the novel sequence, which I will refer to henceforth as INS1378, is from a laboratory-induced recombination event. Specifically,
(1) The sequence similarity to other coronavirus sequences is lower to its most similar sequences in any coronavirus than the rest of the genome (IPAK finding)
(2) The high sequence similarity of INS1378 to a SARS spike protein (2; IPAK Confirmed).
(3) We also found significant sequence similarity of INS1378 to a pShuttle-SN vector that was in use in the 1980’s in China to create a more immunogenic coronavirus (IPAK finding, details below, Option 4).
Here, I review four Option on the origins of the 2019-nCoV Coronavirus isolated from human patients from Wuhan, China.
Option 1. Natural coronavirus related to bat coronaviruses, Not a Recombined Virus.
Evidence for: Phylogenetic clustering with Bat coronaviruses.
Evidence against: Low bootstrap support (N=75) and presence of a INS1378.
Status: Falsified hypothesis.
Test: Survey coronviruses in animals in the wild.
Option 2. A recombined virus that naturally picked up a SARS-like spike protein in it N-terminus (3′ end) of the viral genome.
Evidence for: The INS1378 codon bias similar to snakes ($)
Evidence against: Insufficient match in database search to other known CoV spike proteins (Ji et al., 2020)
Status: Speculative hypothesis. Unlikely.
Test: Find an isolate that matches 2019-nCoV in the wild and reproducibly independently isolate the virus from a wild animal (a match will confirm).
Option 3. A recombined virus made in a laboratory for the purpose of creating a bioweapon.
Both China and the US hinted at the other side’s potential liability in playing a role in bringing about a novel coronavirus in the lab specifically for the purpose of being used as a bioweapon. To add to the intrigue, a Chinese Scientist was released from BSL-4 laboratory in Manitoba, Canada for violating protocols, allegedly sending samples of deadly viruses to mainland China.
On January 26, The Washington Times published this article citing an Israeli defense expert claiming that China has likely proceeded with a bioweapons program, but ending the article with a quote to London’s Daily Mail from a US scientist Rutgers University microbiologist Richard Ebright that “at this point there’s no reason to harbor suspicions” that the lab may be linked to the virus outbreak.
The same person was quoted in a Feb 2017 Nature article stating that SARS had escaped the Wuhan a facility in Beijing (corrected 2/2/2020) “multiple times”.
Evidence for: Presence of BSL-4 laboratory 20 miles from the Wuhan seafood market
Evidence against: Published opinion.
Status: Rumor. But see below.
Option 4. A recombined virus made in a laboratory for the purpose of creating a vaccine.
IPAK researchers found a sequence similarity between a pShuttle-SN recombination vector sequence and INS1378. Here’s a shot of the alignment and the DOT Plot.
The pShuttle-SN vector was among many described in a 1998 paper by Bert Vogelstein et al; here is a company where one can purchase the pShuttle-SN vector:
It turns out that the sequence from pShuttle is most closely related to the Spike protein from SARS coronavirus.
SARS vaccine of adenovirus vector and preparation method, application of coronavirus S gene Abstract (translated from Chinese)
The present invention belongs to the field of genetic engineering, particularly relates to adenoviral vector SARS vaccines, their preparation and coronavirus S genes in SARS (SARS) on vaccines for the prophylaxis. By means of biological engineering, the coronavirus S gene in combination with deficient recombinant adenovirus, the protective immunogen protein or polypeptide expressed therein, through expansion culture, purification, and formulation to prepare a mucosal immunogenicity can cause the gene vaccine, respiratory mucosal immune response induced by the body to produce antibodies against the virus infection. Specific conditions of the present invention, compared with conventional inactivated virus particle vaccine, safe, easy to use, without limitation intramuscular, have broad clinical applications.
In 2015, The US called for an end to research creating new viruses in the lab that have increased threat (higher transmissibility, higher pathogenicity, higher lethalithy) (3)
The very researchers conducting studies on SARS vaccines have cautioned repeatedly against human trials;
“An early concern for application of a SARS-CoV vaccine was the experience with other coronavirus infections which induced enhanced disease and immunopathology in animals when challenged with infectious virus [31], a concern reinforced by the report that animals given an alum adjuvanted SARS vaccine and subsequently challenged with SARS-CoV exhibited an immunopathologic lung reaction reminiscent of that described for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants and in animal models given RSV vaccine and challenged naturally (infants) or artificially (animals) with RSV [32], [33]. We and others described a similar immunopathologic reaction in mice vaccinated with a SARS-CoV vaccine and subsequently challenged with SARS-CoV [18], [20], [21], [28]. It has been proposed that the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV is the antigen to which the immunopathologic reaction is directed [18], [21]. Thus, concern for proceeding to humans with candidate SARS-CoV vaccines emerged from these various observations.” – Tseng et al.,
The disease progression in of 2019-nCoV is consistent with those seen in animals and humans vaccinated against SARS and then challenged with re-infection. Thus, the hypothesis that 2019-nCoV is an experimental vaccine type must be seriously considered.
Evidence for: Sequence homology between INS1378 to pShuttle Coronavirus vaccine; presence of a SARS-like Spike protein in bat coronavirus, otherwise most similar to bat coronaviruses; low bootstrap value.
Evidence against: Low sequence homology (but highly signifiant). NB these viruses are RNA viruses and they can evolve quickly, even under laboratory conditions.
Status: Most likely.
Test: Determine the nucleotide sequence all laboratory types of coronavirus being studied in China (a match will confirm). Find an isolate that matches 2019-nCoV in the wild and reproducibly independently isolate the virus from a wild animal (a match will falsify).
The available evidence most strongly supports that the 2019-NCoV virus is a vaccine strain of coronavirus either accidentally released from a laboratory accident, perhaps a laboratory researcher becoming infected with the virus while conducting animal experiments, or the Chinese were performing clinical studies of a Coronavirus vaccine in humans.
Dr. Dale Brown brought to my attention the studies that have reported serious immunopathology in animals – rats, ferrets, and monkeys – in which animals vaccinated against coronoviruses tended to have extremely high rates of respiratory failure upon subsequent exposure in the study when challenged with the wild-type coronavirus.
“Caution in proceeding to application of a SARS-CoV vaccine in humans is indicated”- Te et al., 2012 [Full Text]
Yasui et al., (2012) reported severe pneumonia in mice who were vaccinated against SARS who were subsequently infected with SARS.
Another study of a double-inactived SARS vaccine found increased eosinophilic proinflammatory responses in vaccinated mice, especially older mice, writing:
“Importantly, aged animals displayed increased eosinophilic immune pathology in the lungs and were not protected against significant virus replication.”
If the Chinese government has been conducting human trials against SARS. MERS, or other coronviruses using recombined viruses, they may have made their citizens far more susceptible to acute respiratory distress syndrome upon infection with 2019-nCoV coronavirus.
The implications are clear: if China sensitized their population via a SARS vaccine, and this escaped from a lab, the rest of world has a serious humanitarian urgency to help China, but may not expect as serious an epidemic as might otherwise be expected.
In the worst-case scenario, if the vaccination strain is more highly contagious and lethal, 2019-nCoV could become the worst example of vaccine-derived contagious disease in human history. With an uncharacteristic aysmptomatic prodromal period of 5-7 days, individuals returning from China to other countries must be forthright and cooperative in their now-prescribed 2-week quarantine.
Tseng et al., 2012. Double-Inactivated Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Vaccine Provides Incomplete Protection in Mice and Induces Increased Eosinophilic Proinflammatory Pulmonary Response Upon Challenge https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3209347/
Te et al., 2012. Immunization with SARS coronavirus vaccines leads to pulmonary immunopathology on challenge with the SARS virus. PLoS One 7(4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22536382
An
initial assesment of the “coronavirus” outbreak.
Seemorerocks
I now feel ready to weigh in with some of my own observations and to come up with a tentative conclusion based on the widely contradictory information that is coming in.
I am more confident about what is NOT happening than I am about what is happening. However, we can say some things with a certain degree of certainty.
The first is that the numbers dying from this coronavirus are WAY, way more than what is being reported.
Think about it for a moment. There are only a certain number of virus test kits to go round and bodies are reportedly being taken to the crematorium.
The second, is I can almost dismiss the official explanation that this disease came from bats or from the "wet markets", as awful as they are.
First, look at the latest coming out of China:
Right now, there is a lot of blame going round. Chinese propaganda is working furiously to put out a message that the West is "playing the blame game" and not assisting China in any way. This, from the Global Times.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Saturday in Chinese that China is making all-out efforts to control and what China has been doing is responsible. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has plan to visit Wuhan during his visit to China, information available suggests.... Some Southeast Asian countries have also enacted entry restrictions out of concern for their own public health security - as their medical systems are not as capable as China's to fight the virus - but have not used the crisis to demonize China or politicize the epidemic. Some Southeast Asian countries have also enacted entry restrictions out of concern for their own public health security - as their medical systems are not as capable as China's to fight the virus - but have not used the crisis to demonize China or politicize the epidemic. https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1178492.shtml
While China dedicates mammoth resources to contain the epidemic, several Western countries are exploiting the crisis to smear China and drive a wedge between the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people. In contrast, Southeast Asian countries that are close to China have a milder reaction to the epidemic and offer moral support to China.
One reason for this contrast is the "China threat" theory, with which Western countries observe China through the tinted spectacles of ideology and thus cannot view the epidemic fairly.
Reflected in Zero Hedge:
Don't get me wrong, but I really like Pepe Escobar but when he says that "fear and chaos is being weaponized big time to create a new Yellow Peril" and that the "coronavirus is being contained".
The former statement has a certain level of truth to it as we shall see - even though the truth is, as I have been pointing out , that the western media has being doing the opposite - or, rather pushing fear porn like the current series, Pandemic, on Netflix to denial of the "information" they are putting out elsewhere.
The second claim - "coronavirus is being contained" - is just sheer wrong, if not disinformation.
He has put out this article which has been published by the Vineyard of the Saker:
Meanwhile,
it’s always enlightening to remember Great Helmsman Mao Zedong. For
Mao, the top two political variables were “independence” and
“development.” That implies full sovereignty. As Xi seems
determined to prove a sovereign civilization-state is able to win a
scientific “people’s war,” that does not exactly spell out
“vulnerability.”
And then we come to John Pilger, who is a journalist I hold in high regard but I can see here that his leftist agenda gets in the way of the truth.
He says that travel bans are "racist" and "not approved by WHO" that has been at the very best negligent, if not criminal in their non-response to this.
He then repeats the nonsense of comparing with the current flu epidemic in the United States.
He evidently has not acquainted himself with the science - or he rejects concepts such as Ro, or graphs such as the following which reflects the reality on the ground.
Do we just accept at face-value what the CPC says without delving any deeper?
I personally think this all calls for both a cool head and a more objective response.
I think that we need to throw out ideology and preconceived notions when dealing with this.
The first point I would make is that in crises like this ALL governments lie mercilessly but nobody lies as mercilessly as the Chinese. There is no transparency to be had in China unlike, perhaps Russia which has been moving in the right direction.
Firstly this was the country in which Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years'. Like the USSR, there were many positive changes (literacy levels, education and public health could be named) but I would be hard-pressed to say that the loss of 45 million lives in 4 years was worthwhile.
I don't see that governance has changed much in a positive direction.
However, there is the other side of the coin.
I have been chronicling the Trump administration's crusade against the People's Republic of China - the trade war unleashed on China and the unrest that has been unleashed in Hong Kong.
While we are talking about lies nobody lies in quite the same way as Donald J. Trump and the United States regime.
Take this - two lies for the cost of one!
The United States has taken decisive action to protect Americans from the threat of a fast-moving coronavirus while offering help to China, President Donald Trump said on Sunday, but a key adviser said Beijing had not accepted the offers of assistance.
Trump appeared to downplay concerns about the impact in the United States of the flu-like virus that has killed 350 people in China and spread to more than two dozen countries, telling Fox television in an interview, “We’re gonna see what happens, but we did shut it down, yes.”
I have been hearing calls for suppression of the truth under the guise of "fighting" ideas that are just "incorrect" - such as all the ways people can recover from this even while they do not know for sure what this is.
This media crusade has been led by the loopy purveyor of fake news about Russiagate and other things, the infamous Buzzfeed.
Here, they attack Hal Turner.
There are not 112,000 dead from the virus because the Chinese government says there are 400:
If I had to make the choice right now I would say that it is Buzzfeed that is the purveyor of fake news.
Finally, there is the hoary question of the nature of the virus.
There has been lots of information that has come out, from a British patent on the coronavirus that appears to be linked with Bill Gates; a US scientist being caught smuggling out vials of the virus; something similar happening in Canada and allegations that this might have been the escape of a weaponised virus from the laboratory in Wuhan (or Nanjing, according to Hal Turner.)
The information coming out was so contradictory but each theory came with some documentation to back it up.
However, it was having a day in which I just had to step back and watching the following interview with Dr. Francis Boyle that made up my mind so that I am s confident as I can be that the :coronavirus" is indeed weaponised and produced in a lab.
I have not read his book "Biowarfare and Terrorism" but I suspect that in the current situation it will make for informative reading.
In this interview he goes through some of the possible explanations that have been going around in my head - the criminality of the Chinese government; admitting the possibility of sabotage; looking at the possibility of actions from the United States and - above all - the spectre of vaccines containing nanotechology that he contends is already there and waiting.
There is a lot of uncertainty right now but I believe this to be a bioweapon. Whose is the main question.
I have said from day one that IF the present coronavirus goes the same way as SARS (and "burns itself out") while it decimates the People's Republic of China I would take it as a strong indicator that this was an attack carried out by the United States (which part would be a moot point).
This remains to be seen.
In the meantime Catherine Austin Fitts has some pertinent things to say ('the Deep State is winning').
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