American virologists ridiculed a bombshell claim by Chinese scientist-turned-‘whistleblower’ Li-Meng Yan that Covid-19 was produced in the Wuhan laboratory, as the news went viral across US media and social networks.
Yan certainly grabbed the headlines when she told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that she has “solid evidence” that the dreaded Covid-19, which infected almost 30 million people around the world and killed more than 935,000, was “deliberately” produced in the Wuhan laboratory. She did not stop at that and went on to claim that Beijing also released the deadly virus “intentionally” to inflict “damage” on the world.
Chinese virologist whistleblower Dr. Li-Meng Yan tells Tucker Carlson that COVID-19 was created and deliberately unleashed by the Chinese government:TUCKER: “You’re saying the Chinese government manufactured this virus?” YAN: “Yes exactly.” pic.twitter.com/vGFr73p8z6
The virologist, who worked at Hong Kong University before reportedly fleeing to the US, made her claims days after publishing a preprint of a study supposedly proving the ‘man-made’ nature of the novel coronavirus.
The news was immediately picked up by the media in the US and abroad. There was also no shortage of public personalities and pundits breaking the news and pushing Yan’s narrative on social media.
Wow, amazing and shocking intv on tonight’s show w @TuckerCarlson & Dr. Li-Meng Yan. Amazing details and allegations that COVID-19 is man-made and released deliberately by the CCP. I hope she has serious security. https://t.co/t1aPKtvX7S
BREAKING: Chinese Virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan says on @TuckerCarlson that the Chinese Communist Party intentionally created & unleashed #COVID19 upon the world as part of biological warfare, particularly targeted at the United States. #coronavirus
Dr. Li-Meng Yan says that China intentionally released COVID to damage the world. You all need to wake up and realize we are at war.
Yan’s colleagues within the scientific community appeared to be much less fascinated by her surprise ‘revelation’, though. A group of prominent American virologists almost immediately ridiculed her study, which has not yet been published in any reputable scientific journals and has not apparently been peer-reviewed, as a “fantasy and conspiracy” that has little to do with science.
Tonight an odd research institute released a bizarre and unfounded preprint claiming an engineered origin to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Already downloaded 100K times, the paper was picked up by the NY Post. The research institute? Directed by Steve Bannon until his recent conviction. pic.twitter.com/btuK7Xt15T
A few comms on the (lack of) scientific merits of the “Yan Report”. It is non-scientific and false – cherry picking data and ignoring data disproving their hypotheses.It’s using technical language that is impossible to decode for non-experts – poppycock dressed up as ‘science’. pic.twitter.com/Cnalk8Sjiu
Some of them certainly minced no words while describing the contents of Yan’s study.
For all the people harping incessantly about polybasic cleavage sites and gain-of-function studies, here’s another great debunking thread from a former colleague of one of the authors of this preprint. These claims are, to use some virology jargon, total horseshit. https://t.co/r8IwqNcMDd
Others also pointed to the fact that the study preprint mentions the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation on its front page.
A glimpse into very coordinated and connected COVID conspiracy activity: Earlier today a paper was “published” by a group at the Rule of Law Society claiming evidence COVID was engineered in a lab. What is the Rule of Law Society? A non-profit operates by Steve Bannon pic.twitter.com/f0ViHzP2YE
From there the story was quickly picked up by the New York Post. By all accounts this study is complete fantasy and conspiracy. It cites other conspiracy work am includes huge unjustified leaps in logic and glaring omissions. pic.twitter.com/1ClzgcSMcV
The two organizations had nothing to do with scientific publications until recently but instead operated as non-profits focused solely on bringing “democracy” and “rule of law” to China while exposing all of Beijing’s perceived misdeeds. Both of them were founded by Steve Bannon – US President Donald Trump’s former campaign chief executive, adviser and strategist, who has recently been indicted on charges of wire fraud and money laundering.
Bannon, who describes himself as an ‘ultra-hawk’ on China, earlier claimed to have “shocking” evidence proving the virus originated in the Wuhan lab and the Chinese Communist Party had a hand in it, while citing evidence from some Chinese scientists who “defected” to the US.
Twitter apparently did not fall for Yan’s narrative either since it blocked the Chinese virologist’s account soon after she posted a link to her preprint. While the exact cause of the move remains unknown, many people immediately guessed it was because of her publication with some of them accusing Twitter of “covering for” the Chinese Communist Party.
This appears to be the Twitter account of Dr. Li-Meng Yan–suspended subsequent to her bombshell allegations regarding the origins of the Chinese coronavirus pic.twitter.com/HXtM20vJjm
Twitter has suspended Dr. Li-Meng Yan since the interview. She was forced to flee China after blowing the whistle on her findings. Now Twitter is covering for the CCP https://t.co/S5xNfZ1Khf
It is not the first time the self-described whistleblower has sparked controversy with her statements. Back in July, she told Fox News in another interview that Beijing knew about the Covid-19 human-to-human transmission well before it claimed it did. Yan also claimed to have studied the virus as early as December 2019 while accusing her supervisors at Hong Kong University of “suppressing” her findings.
Her words were rejected by Hong Kong University which said in a statement Yan “never conducted any research on human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus at HKU during December 2019 and January 2020.”
“The content of the said news report does not accord with the key facts as we understand them,” the university said at that time.
High-ranking US officials, including Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repeatedly claimed that Covid-19 might have originated in the Wuhan lab, with the latter appealing to some “enormous evidence.”
No conclusive proof has been presented to the public to support such claims, and Western intelligence services have admitted on several occasions that they had no such evidence. The head of the Wuhan laboratory repeatedly denied any links to the virus’ origins and said Chinese scientists “did not even know it existed” before the outbreak.
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