Evidence that Covid arose in a Wuhan laboratory continues to accumulate. As readers here may recall, I have argued several times that the deadly Covid-19 virus (more specifically  known as SARS-CoV-2 ) most likely was developed in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (See here, here, here, and here for those posts). My opinion was further validated last week by Nicholas Wade, former science editor of the New York Times, who reported that recently released information “makes a formidable case that the virus is the product of laboratory synthesis, not of nature.” (see that here).

Now take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then mull over Mr. Wade’s second paragraph. “This startling fact will probably take some time to sink into the national consciousness, given the mainstream media’s sustained inability to report the issue objectively. Editors have failed to think beyond the extreme politicization that requires liberals to oppose the lab-leak hypothesis. Science journalists are too beholden to their sources to suspect that virologists would lie to them about the extent of their profession’s responsibility for a catastrophic pandemic.”

Here is the thrust of the recently released information evaluated by Mr. Wade. In 2018, a group led by Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance of New York, Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina applied to the Pentagon for $14 million grant to alter bat viruses that possibly might jump to humans, and then immunize bats so they wouldn’t infect soldiers in the region. They proposed to increase the viruses’ infectivity by inserting into them a genetic element known as a furin cleavage site.

They also proposed in that grant application to assemble SARS-like viruses from six sections of lab-synthesized DNA, including in their budget a cost estimate for purchase of the BsmBI restriction enzyme which apparently is required for such assembly.  In 2022, without knowing these details, three biologists proposed that if SARS-CoV 2 had been generated in a lab by a standard method, it would have been assembled from six sections of lab-synthesized DNA with the help of biological agent BsmBI. (Hmm, does that sound familiar?) Furthermore, on analyzing the virus’s structure, the biologists found evidence for the seams between sections and other distinctive marks of the assembly process, causing a molecular biologist at Rutgers University to say the genetic evidence raises “to the level of a smoking gun” that the virus was manufactured. Oh, importantly, Covid-19 also has a furin cleavage site.

Peter Daszak (president of the EcoHealth Alliance, the enterprise that funneled substantial funds from the National Institutes of Health to the Wuhan Institute of Virology) was known to favor laboratory work in Wuhan even though that virus laboratory had a lesser level of safety (BLS2) than his collaborator’s laboratory in North Carolina (BSL3) See here for a breakdown of laboratory security differences. Daszak is also the man who drafted the Lancet’s medical journal letter that was signed by a group of virologists who claimed that Covid-19 had developed naturally. (See more on that story here).

Here is how Nicholas Wade ends his recent article: “Chinese officials have demanded that the U.S. ‘stop defaming China’ by raising the possibility of a lab leak. One piece is missing from the puzzle— the identity of the parent viruses from which SARS-CoV-2 was derived. The Chinese authorities have rigorously suppressed all information about the viruses being kept in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But the documentary and scientific evidence already assembled seems sufficient to understand the genesis of the pandemic that killed millions.”

Do you agree with that conclusion? Covid has changed our world. I submit that we now have convincing evidence that Covid arose in a Wuhan laboratory, and at least part of that work likely was funded by our National Institutes of Health.