US scientists planned to engineer viruses with the same unique features of Covid, bombshell documents have revealed.
The new tranche of emails, memos and funding applications have been dubbed the “smoking gun” in the ongoing probe into the origins of Covid.
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The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been at the centre of the lab leak theory ever since Covid first emerged just a stone’s throw from the facility – which was known to be studying very similar bat viruses.
Scientists found that Covid was “exquisitely matched”, “completely pre-adapted” and “supercharged” for humans when it first emerged in Wuhan in 2019.
It’s suggested by some that it had been meddled with and souped by in so-called Frankenvirus experiments at the Wuhan lab.
For years, Shi Zhengli – dubbed “batwoman” – manipulated viruses and inserted spike protein genes into coronaviruses to make them more infectious in humans.
The lab has a history of using techniques which can hide any traces of genetic engineering, and scientists have noted how Covid has highly unusual features – which point to a lab origin.
And many scientists believe the answers to the origins of Covid lies in the unique genome of the virus.
Now, new documents – obtained by US Right to Know – show how the genome of Covid matches the viruses described in a research proposal from US scientists.
The 2018 proposal – called DEFUSE – reveal how US scientists applied for funding to engineer coronaviruses in China – just a year before the pandemic.
It was led by EcoHealth Alliance – the US-based firm that has come under fire for its taxpayer-funded coronavirus experiments in China.
New documents now reveal how US scientists planned to engineer a virus that has a striking similarity to the genetic make-up of Covid.
US scientists proposed stitching SARS-related genomes in six pieces to create a new synthetic virus.
And one of the unique features of Covid is the fact that it’s divided into six pieces.
Scientists said the likelihood of six evenly spaced segments appearing in a naturally-occurring virus is highly improbable.
Another unique feature of Covid is that the six chunks are separated by enzymes called Bsal and BsmBI.
And orders for one of the enzymes, BsmBI, can be found in the newly released documents from the research proposal.
Biosafety expert Professor Richard Ebright said: “An order line for BsmBI in a draft of EcoHealth’s 2018 proposal is the equivalent of a smoking gun.
“There is no – zero – remaining room for reasonable doubt that EcoHealth and its associates caused the pandemic.
“The match between the evidence provided by the genome sequence and the evidence provided by the FOIA release is remarkable.
“It elevates the evidence provided by the genome sequence from the level of ‘noteworthy’ to the level of ‘smoking gun’.
“The 2018 EcoHealth proposal provided step-by-step plans for construction of a virus having the sequence and properties of the virus that emerged a year later in Wuhan: SARS-CoV-2.”
Valentin Bruttel, a molecular immunologist at the University of Wuerzburg, said: “Exactly as we had postulated, they planned to use six segments to assemble synthetic viruses.”
US Right to Know said some of the same enzyme sites in Covid have been found in viruses closely related in nature – meaning they could have come about from recombination, not engineering.
The match between the evidence provided by the genome sequence and the evidence provided by the FOIA release is remarkable
Richard Ebright
Elsewhere in the documents, new notes from calls show scientists wanted to use a fragment in their viruses that binds well to human cells.
This could help explain why the virus was “ready made” to infect humans.
The grant proposal was ultimately rejected by the US government – but it’s not known if the engineering experiments were carried out regardless with other funding.
The latest set of bombshell documents – obtained through Freedom of Information requests – add to a mounting pile of evidence pointing to a lab leak as the source of the Covid pandemic.
The genetic make-up of Covid has long baffled scientists.
Scientists previously found the genetic code for what is known as a “furin cleavage site”.
Virologists have yet to identify one in any other related coronavirus.
Professor Richard Ebright said it was “noteworthy” as it has never be seen before in coronaviruses.
And it appears in the exact spot where scientists genetically tweak viruses to make them more infectious to humans.
In other words, a “furin cleavage site” boosts the ability of a virus to jump between species, and can make it more transmissible within a species.
Investigative journalist Sharri Markson’s What really happened in Wuhan has uncovered a string of evidence pointing to the fact Covid could have been “genetically engineered” in Wuhan.
“Its unique properties reveal so much about its likely origins as scientists, investigators and intelligence analysts seek to unravel its moment of inception,” she said.
“This incredibly devastating virus is like no other, despite sharing properties with its SARS cousins. In character and behaviour it gives the impression it is purpose built to infect humans.
“It acts as if it’s tailor made for human carnage, almost unstoppable in its capacity to ravage the human respiratory system.
“The millions dead all over the world attest to that.”
The virus spike protein looked like it couldn’t have been better designed to fit the human
Nikolai Petrovsky
Nikolai Petrovsky, one of the scientists behind the development of the Covid vaccine, told Markson: “The issue is that the Covid-19 has a furin cleavage site whereas neither the bat virus that is its closest relative nor SARS have it.
“A question then is, where did Covid-19 get its furin cleavage site from?”
Petrovsky said the findings all point to a manmade virus – but the evidence was deemed “political dynamite” and scientific journals refused to the publish any papers on the clues.
“The virus spike protein looked like it couldn’t have been better designed to fit the human,” he said.
“The SARS-Cov-2 spike protein had uniquely evolved to bind and infect humans.”
US physicist Richard Muller said the unique make-up of Covid is a “fingerprint of genetic manipulation”.
“It’s like finding a fingerprint at a crime scene,” he said.
“If you pick up a gun at a crime scene and find a fingerprint, this is not circumstantial evidence.
“This is the smoking gun. The furin cleavage site… the sequences that they splice in if you’re really trying to attack humans, this is the fingerprint.”
Many scientists and intelligence officials suspect bungling researchers at the lab accidentally spread Covid during risky experiments on bat coronaviruses.
Even the FBI and the US Department of Energy now believe Covid most likely leaked from a lab in China.
Emails obtained by US Right to Know show how US scientists appeared to cover up their plan to carry out the high-risk coronavirus experiments in Wuhan with shoddy biosafety measures.
The Sun also revealed that US government health officials deliberately downplayed a lab leak as the most likely cause of the pandemic.
Over the summer, reports suggested that US spies were probing whether Covid was created by a Chinese military scientist before it leaked from a Wuhan lab.
Zhou Yusen, who worked for the People’s Liberation Army, filed a patent for a Covid vaccine before the pandemic was declared – and mysteriously died just weeks later.
It followed a secret memo that revealed that China ordered scientists to destroy all early coronavirus samples from their labs just two days after the world was first told about Covid.
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