All articles tagged with #wuhan
Chengxuan Han, a Chinese citizen and Ph.D. student from Wuhan, was charged with smuggling biological materials into the U.S. and making false statements at Detroit airport, raising concerns over national security and research integrity.
The lab-leak hypothesis of COVID-19's origins gained popularity despite lacking evidence, while the natural origin theory is better supported. The debate surrounding the lab-leak hypothesis is fueled by the proximity of virology labs in Wuhan to the outbreak, but this argument ignores the presence of wet markets and the historical precedence of zoonotic spillovers. The lab-leak hypothesis is poorly supported and internally incoherent, but the popular consensus is unwilling to accept this.
A newly declassified US intelligence report on the origins of COVID-19 sheds little light on how the pandemic began and is unlikely to settle the debate between the natural spillover and lab leak hypotheses. The report focuses on potential links between the pandemic and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, including collaborations between researchers at the institute and the Chinese military. While acknowledging the research conducted at the lab, the report found no direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic. The report adds little to earlier assessments, which remain unchanged.
US intelligence agencies have found no evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology conducted genetic engineering on viruses related to Covid-19 or held such viruses in its stockpiles before the pandemic.
George Gao, the former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledged in a BBC podcast that the coronavirus could have emerged as a result of a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Gao's statement may have been authorized by China's government and thus may augur a change in China's government's stance on the subject. Gao also told the BBC that the Chinese government investigated the Wuhan laboratory, though he gave no details about the investigation.
Wuhan, the largest city in central China, has publicly demanded that hundreds of local companies repay their debts, as the city faces dire financial challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a real estate crash. The city's finance bureau said that a total of 259 companies and entities owed it more than $14 million combined. The debtors include state or privately owned companies, government departments, and think tanks. The announcement highlights the fiscal challenges facing China's local governments, with some cities already slashing medical benefits to seniors and other vital services at risk.
Wuhan's finance bureau has publicly exposed 259 firms with debt to the government and urged them to immediately pay up, as local governments in China become increasingly pressed by higher debt and expenses. The borrowed funds ranged from just over 10,000 yuan to more than 10 million yuan ($1.45 million), with the total amount exceeding 100 million yuan ($14.47 million). Debtors include district finance bureaus, scientific research units, state-owned enterprises, units of listed companies as well as private firms.
A 302-page Senate report obtained by Axios suggests that the coronavirus pandemic may have originated from a laboratory accident due to biosafety issues in Wuhan, China. The report evaluates the two leading theories, transfer from wild animals or an accident at a Chinese government lab, and concludes the latter is stronger. The report's case for a lab accident being the cause relies on several lines of evidence, including the absence of naturally occurring viruses with the same composition of the coronavirus and evidence that the virus was circulating in Wuhan before the first known cases connected to the wet market were reported.
Chinese health officials defend their search for the origin of COVID-19 and criticize the World Health Organization (WHO) for suggesting that China should have shared genetic information earlier. The WHO Director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had said that newly disclosed genetic material from Wuhan should have been made available when the virus began. Chinese officials have previously pushed back on the theory that the virus originated in a Wuhan seafood market where illegally traded raccoon dogs may have infected humans. FBI Director Christopher Wray said in March that the COVID-19 pandemic was likely caused by a lab leak in Wuhan, China.
Chinese scientists have published a study in the journal Nature confirming the presence of animals susceptible to the coronavirus at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan in early 2020, where many of the earliest known Covid patients had worked or shopped. The study found DNA from raccoon dogs and other animals at the market, but the scientists said it remained unclear how the pandemic began. Many virologists believe the virus spilled into people from an illegally traded wild animal at the market, but the Chinese authors stressed uncertainty and raised the notion that the virus could have been ferried to the Wuhan market on packages of frozen food.
A report released by international experts has described a swab taken from a cart at the Wuhan market in January 2020 that was positive for the coronavirus and contained genetic material from raccoon dogs. The report strengthens the case that illegally traded wild animals ignited the coronavirus pandemic. The database that held the raw data was removed by Chinese researchers after the international team discovered it, and the nonprofit organization that runs the database, called GISAID, has come under scrutiny for its role in controlling access to the data.
Chinese scientists briefly uploaded data to a pathogen database, providing new clues on the origins of COVID-19, including the role of raccoon dogs in the virus reaching humans. The data showed that animals susceptible to the virus were present in the Huanan market in Wuhan, where the virus was first identified. The report, written by international researchers, adds to the evidence identifying the market as the spillover location of SARS-CoV-2. The WHO has called on China to release more information, and all hypotheses for COVID-19's origins remain on the table.
Newly released genomic data from the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic suggests that Covid-infected animals were present at a market in Wuhan and could have been a “potential source of human infections”. The research examined genomic sequences from the newly released material, which was collected at the Wuhan market. The release of the new data leaves many questions unanswered, not least why it has taken so long for the genetic sequences to emerge.
Genetic data from Wuhan's wet market has shown raccoon dog DNA blended with the COVID-19 virus, suggesting that the virus may have infected the animals. The data has not been formally reviewed nor published in a peer-reviewed journal, but international health experts say that this finding adds credence to the theory that the COVID-19 virus came from animals instead of a lab leak. WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus slammed China for not sharing the data earlier, and since the first COVID-19 death in Wuhan on January 11, 2020, the virus has killed 6,873,477 people worldwide.
New genetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 viruses found at the Huanan animal market in Wuhan offers clues to the animal origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, including "molecular evidence" of animals like raccoon dogs at the market intermingled in swabs from the same spots that turned up the shedding from the virus itself in the market. However, the samples only indicate that both raccoon dogs and the virus were present at the market; it is not direct proof that the species was the carrier. The WHO has called for Chinese health authorities to release genetic sequences of SARS-CoV-2 that recently disappeared from an international database.