EDITOR, The Tribune

SARS-CoV-2 is a new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The virus has destroyed lives and brought the world to a grinding halt.

The original narrative is that the virus was transmitted from an animal to a human at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019.

Although the market may have been a concentrated point of the outbreak, there is a theory that the virus was accidentally or intentionally released from a laboratory near the market.

Located less than nine miles from the Huanan market is the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). It is a Biosafety Level-4 (BSL-4) facility which is the highest pathogen security level. The WIV experiments with coronaviruses and other extremely dangerous pathogens. Located less than 300 meters from the Huanan market is the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (WHCDC) which also studies coronaviruses.

Although the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dismisses the latter theory, U.S. Embassy officials expressed concern in 2018 about safety risks at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Also, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreaks from labs have been officially documented in the past; including SARS outbreaks from labs in Beijing, China in 2004.

After the first SARS outbreak started in China in 2002, countless warnings of a pandemic have been sounded yet safety measures have not been followed or enforced.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, doctors in Wuhan tried to sound the alarm. Authorities accused them of spreading rumours, and they were silenced and reprimanded. Doctors, along with their colleagues and patients, died because of COVID-19. Had the doctors been allowed to share their knowledge with the world, lives would have been saved, the outbreak contained, and a global pandemic avoided.

When Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia requested an independent international investigation regarding the origin of COVID-19 and the WHO’s response to the pandemic, China threatened to boycott Australian education, tourism and agriculture. Australia was accused of “making trouble” and referred to “like chewing gum stuck on the sole of China’s shoes.”

When discussing “the issue of pandemic preparedness” at Georgetown University in 2017, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and White House health advisor made an ominous prediction. He said the Trump administration would be faced with “a surprise outbreak.” Is COVID-19 the “surprise outbreak?”

Whatever conclusions one arrives at, the COVID-19 pandemic was caused by humans and could have been prevented.

If the virus originated at the “wet” market in Wuhan, it is because humans use inhumane and unhygienic methods to capture, transport, confine and slaughter animals. Wet markets, along with China’s annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival where dogs are killed for human consumption, act as incubators for diseases and future outbreaks.

Due to COVID-19, labs around the world are racing to produce a vaccine in record time. In order to create a vaccine, horrific experiments are performed on animals, and potentially lethal pathogens are manipulated in laboratories, thereby increasing the risk of future outbreaks.

Although we have been programmed to believe that vaccines are effective and safe, Dr. Fauci told Congress in May 2020 that a COVID-19 vaccine may not work and could even make the virus stronger. Vaccines contain ingredients such as: formaldehyde, aluminum, thimerosal, monosodium glutamate (MSG), animal tissue (mouse, monkey, bird and cow) and aborted human fetal tissue.

At the end of the day the pandemic should not have occurred, COVID-19 and mutations of the virus are probably here to stay, and the risk of future outbreaks seems inevitable.

All countries and the WHO should hold China accountable for this health and economic disaster. And measures must be taken to clamp down on the way lethal pathogens are handled, manipulated and used; as well as the way animals are treated.

We must do our own research, speak truth to power, and demand accountability for the fiasco resulting from COVID-19.

We need treatments that are safe, affordable and accessible for everyone, and we need them now so we can move forward with our lives.

As of July 03, 2020, the WHO website says China has contributed over 25 million US dollars to WHO for COVID-19 appeal. How is The Bahamas going to be compensated for the COVID-19 catastrophe?

FORWARD, UPWARD, ONWARD, TOGETHER

Nassau,

July 7, 2020