Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2
The most important of these was Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2.
It supplied the science basis for engineering the world-view of Covid’s origin.
The BBC described it as the definitive paper ruling out the possibility of a lab leak.
Pub: Mar 17, 2020 by Nature (draft completed Feb 1 - the date of the teleconference - where it was presented by Farrar/Andersen/Holmes - supplied the backbone for discussions)
The premise:
Horseshoe bats, possibly carrying RaTG13, (Mojiang cave incident, Yunnan*) managed to infect a population of at least 21 caged Malayan pangolin such as those smuggled into Guangdong (1000 km away). (*dismissed by WIV/EHA as a coronavirus incident)
The pangolin were then transported to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan (1000 km another away), where they were slaughtered for sale.
Before their death, the bat virus is theorized by the authors to have pulled off an average of 50 years (according to Holmes - 20 years if you’re in a rush) of profound evolutionary change - where only that exact alignment in time of freak changes will work. In the caged pangolin environment, it aced the ACE-2 spike protein barrier to human infectivity - resulting in patient zero at the market - as many early cases of COVID-19 were linked to the Huanan (Seafood) market in Wuhan - then patient whatever-many million we’re up to now - and all our freedoms being vacuumed up as a result.
The Conclusion:
As such: Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus. .. (P)angolins...provide a much stronger and more parsimonious explanation of how the virus originated through natural selection.
Yeah, right.
Despite it being known at the time (!) that:
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pangolin are shy solitary creatures - not good vectors for pulling off Holmes’s 50 years of seismic mutations to go from closest (publicly) known bat genome - with no human transmission - to - the most contagious/deadly coronavirus in humans ever known to man.
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Yes, pangolin were/are trafficked, but the window for evolution to work its magic is narrowed down to, evolutionarily speaking, the infinitesimal time frame of: captured/caged - shipped - killed - sold - with 100% mortality rate. How does 20-50 years of high-density living fit into that? Fits fine in a lab - but with your pangolin smuggling/natural evolution story?
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no pangolin were sold at the Nan Hua Seafood Market.
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no market animal tested positive (80 000+ tests later, no pangolin or bat has tested positive, anywhere in the world - finally mink caught it from humans)
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the first cases weren’t from the market
There’s your pangolin premise - collapsed in a heap - before it gets out of the starting gates.
Pile on all the fancy science you like after that - it’s a moot point - your pangolin premise is still
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wrong -
Everything based on it - is - therefore - wrong - sorry to say.
Remember, this is not benefit-of-hindsight. The authors, of course, knew it was whopper as they wrote it - that's why they wrote it - but how did it go from there to:
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peer reviewed
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published by Nature
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endorsed by the one-science community including all major journals, all top public health experts - who took over our lives
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blanket-reported in the media as officially debunking the lab-leak possibility
- used as a basis for banning discussion that it looks engineered by Facebook.
All of the above chose to ignore glaring errors in the fundamental details of the paper. Why?
To perpetrate the greatest scientific fraud of all time.
That makes them hands-on complicit in the Covid Atrocity.
Edward C. Holmes: only non-Chinese scientist allowed into original genome sequence loop), teleconferencer, honorary professor at Fudan, Guest Prof, China CDC, Beijing (2014-2020), has known Farrar & Gao since their career intersections at Oxford/Wellcome in the 90’s. Lead author - also with Andersen and Rambaut on: The Evolution of the Ebola virus: insights from the 2013-16 pandemic. The only thing known for certain about the origin of that outbreak is it's unknown to this day. A lab-leak is suspected. Are our experts also experts at writing shonky origin narratives?
Andrew Rambaut: Man of Mystery. All the others have put themselves out there to pump the paper - but he stayed in the shadows. Still, you can judge a man by the company he keeps - Oxford - specifically Nuffield Department. DPhil from Oxford in 1997 places him there at the same time as brothers-in-arms Farrar, Gao, Holmes, Worobey. Evolutionary biologist specializing in emerging human viral pathogens (funny how the more human viral pathogenicists emerged as a fund-attracting force - the more emerging human viral pathogens emerged), genomic surveillance enthusiast, Feb 1 Teleconferencer, first person Holmes called with the sequence - published on his website, SAGE member (with Jeremy Farrar), futurist (as is Farrar), the blank photo above is from a conference titled: Next-generation molecular and evolutionary epidemiology of infectious disease: challenges and opportunities
Robert Garry: Tulane (since 1983)/Zalgen labs, NIH funded bioweapons expert (according to Andersen), member of The Consortium mixed up in the 2013-14 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone - which was suss at the time - never investigated - origin never found - lab-exit candidate) Actually the TWIV love-in panelist put it best: 608 So you got into immuno-suppressive retroviruses - before HIV came along - and then worked on HIV - and then you got into emerging diseases - emerging infections - ahr - now of course we have a global pandemic of SARS-Covid-2, so i’m gonna be really really closely tracking what you do next (general laughter)
Kristian Andersen: hotshot - youngest - lead-author - Scripps was hemorrhaging money when on Nov 27, 2019 Scripps announced joint Shenzhen Bay Laboratory a trans-Pacific chemical biology research collaboration ) - Garry describes Andersen as a generational scientist - Once was a Twitter warrior - closed his account when the battle heated-up with Drastic.
W. Ian Lipkin - was brought on a little bit later as the celebrity scientist salesman (with more ties to high-ranking China officials than Marco Polo), was in China meeting Li Ke-chiang and George Gao (18:30) when Feb 1 teleconference happened,happened. Has met Xi Jinping - I found him very impressive. Co-author of murky MERS-origin paper with Daszak in Saudi Arabia. Contagion advisor: I devised the imaginary virus that wreaks havoc in the film.film. Cool!
Fast Factoids: Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2:
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displays a beautiful irony in it’s title
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was, according to the authors, purpose-written to quell conspiracy theories around a possible lab-leak (theories originated by Chinese netizens, btw)
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was partially funded by NIH/Francis Collins (H3Africa co-funder)
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draft, according to Garry, was complete .. Feb 1st - same date as authors held strategy-session conference call with Farrar and Fauci. (Flashback: On Jan 31, Andersen (lead author) emailed Farrar/Fauci/Collins saying it looks engineered. That means - literally overnight - the authors changed their thinking 180 degrees, then re-researched/re-wrote/re-edited to - first draft - delivered (at MOU’s Feb 1 teleconference) a paper that clearly show(s) SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.)
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Or …they made it up.
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1707 citations so far - mostly positive ones. An altmetric score of 36,768 - which blows the previous world record of 11,980 out of the water. Once Prox O breaks new ground as Exhibit A in the cover-up - which it’s about to - all bets are off
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mega-platformed (via Nature, Guardian, CNN et al media) the pangolin/wetmarket discourse to irrefutably show Covid couldn’t possibly be a lab-leak.
All this In the crucial nascent period. Where if we’d known it was a GoFFed-up lab bug on the loose - we could have reacted accordingly.
But wait - there’s a silver lining!
Nature, Sep 2020: Through the ‘Solidarity’ trials, the WHO has launched a global campaign to test therapeutic agents and vaccines on an unprecedented scale5.
No, we’ll get to that in a different thread Nature, but we’re not going to be diverted from this question:
Was Proximal Origin knowingly concocted/pro-moed with the full-might of One-Everything - to cover up the origin of Covid?
You’re thinking Fauci - yes of course he’s in the mix - but the man who took the reins - in a crisis - brought it all together is:
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Convened/chaired the Feb 1 teleconference -
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On-sold-it Feb 2 in a teleconference to Tedros
Doesn’t seem like a long rap-sheet - but these were crucial plays - without which - none of this could have happened.
Farrar sees himself, as others do, as indeed he is: a PR genius. An ahead-of-the-curve calculator - decisive - man of action - not afraid to think big.
This was Jeremy’s time to shine. For the public good.
Once you make that decision - the truth - no longer matters - you prosecute your case the same way a good lawyer would.