Dean reviews a US report detailing the possible origins of the Covid-19 virus and speaks with MP Jamie Schmale from Member of Parliament from Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock to discuss the ongoing relationship between the government and Canada's First Nations peoples.
By now you’ve probably heard of a few theories as to how the COVID-19 virus started. Your social media is probably the source of many of those theories.
One in particular has recently made a comeback after a brief mention last year — and that theory is that the COVID-19 virus originated in a science lab located in Wuhan, China — in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. At first, many people dismissed this theory because it seemed to be strongly supported by the former US President.
Fast forward a year, a new president, and the theory is now again being taken seriously. In fact, the current US President, Joe Biden, recently ordered U.S. intelligence agencies report to him within weeks on how the virus emerged. The President acted because of a report issued by a US government lab.
“The scientific evidence points to the conclusion that the virus was developed in a laboratory. In fact, in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here." Dr. Steven Quay and Richard Muller
This report focused on the origins of the Covid-19 virus. The report concluded that the hypothesis claiming the virus leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan is plausible and deserves further investigation.
The Wall Street Journal reports that this study was prepared in May 2020 by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and was drawn on by the State Department when it conducted an inquiry into the pandemic’s origins during the final months of the Trump administration.
The Wall Street Journal goes on to say that “people familiar with the study said that it was prepared by Lawrence Livermore’s “Z Division,” which is its intelligence arm.
The report remains secret.
The Wall Street Journal concludes that this assessment is said to have been among the first U.S. government efforts to seriously explore the hypothesis that the virus leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In addition to this report, two experts recently asserted that the genetic footprint of COVID-19 has never been seen in a naturally occurring coronavirus, further bolstering the Wuhan lab theory.
Dr. Steven Quay and Richard Muller based their claims on the genomic sequencing patterns of COVID-19 and the large discrepancies in its genetic diversity compared to the other coronaviruses responsible for SARS and MERS. Dr. Steven Quay is a medical doctor, the chief executive officer at Atossa Therapeutics and author of the book “Stay Safe: A physician’s Guide to Survive Coronavirus.”
Richard Muller is a professor of physics at the University of California Berkeley and was previously a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
This is what Quay and Muller had to say:
“The scientific evidence points to the conclusion that the virus was developed in a laboratory. In fact, in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here. A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn’t present in any other virus.”
They went on to say that “experts who say COVID-19 originated from nature need to explain why the novel coronavirus, when it mutated or recombined, happened to pick its least favourite combination, the double CGG genome.”
Quay and Muller’s conclusion that a lab leak is the more likely cause of COVID-19 stems from the fact that the double CGG genome has never been found in a naturally occurring coronavirus and is frequently used in laboratory settings.
Leaders around the world are anxiously awaiting the US report to Biden on this topic. What happens if there is credible and convincing evidence that COVID originated in the now-notorious Wuhan lab? What actions would world Leaders take in that scenario? It’s hard to say. So far there hasn’t been much of a discussion about consequences for China.
For now, we wait.
Joining me on the show this week is the Member of Parliament from Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock who was elected back in 2015.
Prior to being elected, Jamie was a news anchor and news director for CHUM media Kawarthas.
Jamie has held multiple roles as shadow minister including Families, Children and Social Development and is currently shadow minister for Crown-Indigenous Relations
Today we are going to talk to Jamie about the relationship between the federal government and our first nations.