The controversial New York-based virologist who attempted to allay suspicions that COVID-19 had leaked from a Chinese facility he helped fund boasted about being back in a virus “reactor core” surrounded by millions of wild bats.
Peter Daszak, whose ties to bat-virus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology created a political controversy among still-unproven suspicions about the origins of COVID, tweeted recordings of his staff capturing and feeding bats in Thailand.
It was part of the latest US government-funded research by his New York City-based EcoHealth Alliance on “the danger of novel viral emergence” in the “hottest of [emerging infectious diseases] hotspots.”
“In the heart of the bat cave — deafening noise as the bats spin,” the British-born scientist posted with a video of the flying animals swarming overhead on Friday.
Daszak shared a video that he claimed showed him “In the heart of the bat cave, which, given what we know about viral emergence, appears to be the’reactor core’ of the colony.
“Given what we know about viral emergence, it appears to be the’reactor core’ of the colony,” he wrote of his continuous, dangerous effort.
Another video depicted what he referred to as a “river of bats in Ratchaburi Cave,” stating that there were perhaps 2.5 million of them there.
Daszak noted that “these bats have been here for three hundred years” as he captured stunning footage of fruit bats covering the daylight sky outside the cave.
Daszak worked with the bat researchers amid substantial controversy and criticism regarding his ties to the Wuhan laboratory.
The video showed a staff member wearing virtually head-to-toe protective garb, with only a portion of his face exposed, holding a trapped bat as others soared around him. Other clips featured a close-up of an individual being fed.
“Each bat receives a banana treat upon sampling. Then freedom with their mates!!!” he commented alongside a video of a bat being set free to fly away.
Peter Daszak meets “the main monk Sittiwatt, who safeguards the colony and oversees the Watt Luong Phromyawat temple
The tape was captured despite calls from lawmakers to defund Daszak and prohibit him from engaging in such dangerous work.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) earlier stated that EcoHealth “should never again be trusted with taxpayer cash or bats.”
Late in 2019, Daszak’s work abroad has been at the center of concerns that the greatest worldwide pandemic in a century may have escaped from a facility in Wuhan.
His EcoHealth Alliance earned
Chinese scientists at the lab have been accused of doing gain-of-function research, in which viruses are altered to make them more transmissible, deadly, and harmful.
Daszak was ember of the World Health Organization team that travelled to China on a fact-finding expedition that failed to obtain definitive results, despite his connections and initial efforts to discredit the lab-leak scenario.
In its most recent denial of producing COVID, EcoHealth Alliance stated that “a lab leak cannot be ruled out totally.”
“The scientific data to far shows that the virus is likely the consequence of viral evolution in nature, possibly leaping straight to humans or via an unexplained intermediate animal host,” the organization added.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), overseen by departing White House adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, financed Daszak’s most recent research in Thailand.
It is part of a “collaboration among the leading scientists in emerging disease research in the United States, Thailand, Singapore, and the three major Malaysian administrative regions… to better understand and respond to the risk of zoonotic viral emergence in Southeast Asia,” according to EcoHealth.
The findings “will increase our understanding of the danger of novel viral emergence in a uniquely important region” and “will serve as a unique early warning system for novel EIDs of any origin that threaten to develop in this hottest of EID hotspots.”
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