By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

Part 21: An old order gives way to reshaping regional geopolitics

Following my instincts for investigative reporting that I have been doing all my professional life, I started surveying the internet for international news and medical journals regarding Covid-19 six years ago , locked mostly in the confines of a classroom of a tutorial service business I had to close because of the pandemic.

My initial intention was to submit an op-ed for a Manila broadsheet, until I encountered The Times of Israel’s article entitled “Xi Jingpin’s China Did This”.

The United States and its allies alleged that China has engaged in dual-use research and retains potential warfare capabilities but China denies possessing, producing, or developing offensive biological or chemical weapons, stating that it strictly adheres to international non-proliferation treaties.

A victim of Japan’s experimentation and development on this type of weapons during World War II, where an estimated 14,000 people were killed inside the Unit 731 facility in Manchukuo and anywhere between 200,00 and 500,000 in Chinese cities and villages, through deliberate contamination of water supplies, food, and agricultural land, it is unlikely that China will make this a preoccupation when it already possess modern nuclear and conventional  war capability.

Based on pure logic, it is incredible for the Chinese to endanger its 1.4 billion population at the time when it has just lifted 800 million from adject poverty. Obviously, this would be catastrophic to its own people. That said, to suggest that China will unleash this diabolic disease in the midst of military games endangering visiting  athletes from many countries is also ridiculous.

But I might be going ahead of my story.

After weeks of pounding on my keyboards enriched by the information highway, I published a book to expose the infodemics: “No Vaccine for a Virus called Racism.”

It had one thesis: Covid-19 was started by the Americans and not the Chinese. Regardless of what transpired at  Wuhan, the Americans were the cause of the cause of the final effect.

Tulsi Gabbard

On her final day as US Director of National Intelligence or DNI, Tulsi Gabbard released a tranche of declassified communications and documents alleging that former top US health official Anthony Fauci provided millions of US taxpayer dollars to fund gain-of-function (GoF) research inside China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Let’s get a little technical here.

Gain-of-function research refers to scientific studies that involve genetically altering an organism to enhance the biological functions of its gene products. This type of research can increase the transmissibility, virulence, and immunogenicity of microorganisms by applying selective pressure to cultures.

Immunogenicity is the ability of a foreign substance, or an antigen, to provoke an immune response in the body of a human or other animal. Wanted immunogenicity typically relates to vaccine development.  Unwanted immunogenicity leads to production of anti-drug-antibodies (ADAs), inactivating the therapeutic effects of the treatment and potentially inducing adverse effects, onto creating more dangerous pathogens, such as those used for making biological weapons.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was established in 1956. It is the only institute specializing in virology, viral pathology and virus technology among 19 other biological and biomedical research institutes in Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), and in charge of setting up the microbiology and epidemiology lab, which will specialize in pathogen detection, the epidemiology of infectious diseases, and prevention and control of infectious diseases.

Dr. Fauci’s agency, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), began funding research involving the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in October2014 when the US government stopped funding for GoF research involving influenza, MERS, and SARS viruses. The ban was lifted in December 2017 but under strict, case-by-case federal review.

The first five-year grant of $3.1 million intended to research bat coronaviruses, was distributed through sub-awards through the U.S.-based non-profit EcoHealth Alliance. The grant was renewed in 2019 but subsequently canceled by the Trump administration in April 2020, after an initial $600,000 had already been spent.

While the NIH has confirmed that a portion of these grant funds was used as sub-awards for WIV to study bat coronaviruses, Dr. Fauci has maintained that the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research at the facility.

What do the documents claim?

Gabbard however said Fauci worked with “politicized career leadership” in the intelligence community to suppress the lab-leak origin theory of Covid-19, and lied to Congress under oath during a June 3, 2024 hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Democratic members of the House Select Subcommittee in 2024 had earlier debunked the same set of claims as unsupported by the committee’s own evidence.

The ODNI release was Gabbard’s second major declassification effort in eight days, following her June 12, 2026 unveiling of records on more than 120 US-funded biological laboratories. It alleges that officials attempted to downplay the possibility that the virus could have originated from a laboratory incident. Gabbard also posted on X to a release published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and announced that all the allegations and links to supporting communications and documents can be accessed at the DNI website.

During a June 3, 2024, hearing before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Fauci claimed NIH “did not fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology” under the framework that is used by the agency for assessing such research. The official hearing transcript of Congress.gov further revealed that Fauci also denied claims that NIH-funded research contributed to the creation of SARS-CoV-2.

According to him, viruses studied under an EcoHealth Alliance in the Wuhan Institute of Virology were genetically too different from SARS-CoV-2 to have been its predecessor.

This reignites a politically and scientifically contested debate that has divided the US intelligence community, with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Department of Energy variously assessing a lab-leak origin, while five other agencies have leaned toward natural spillover.

They also bring into light long-running questions revolving around gain-of-function research, federal funding for scientific collaborations involving laboratories outside the US and government’s transparency regarding the pandemic. US intelligence agencies and scientific bodies have reached varying conclusions as to whether the virus emerged naturally through animal-to-human transmission or resulted from a laboratory-related incident.

Reuters reported in January 2025, the CIA said Covid-19 was “more likely to have originated from a laboratory than from natural sources, though it said the assessment was made with “low confidence” and that both explanations remained plausible.

The Book

What National Health Institute directly or indirectly financed and whatever research Fauci tasked Wuhan Institute of Virology to do that the Chinese government was unaware of, especially if it involved gain of function (Gof), is important in determining any accountability.

But very much wanting if tracing the origins of Covid 19 is the imperative.

On February 12, 2024 China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun denied China’s involvement with any GoF research at the Institute: “China has also made it clear more than once that the Institute has never engaged in gain-of-function studies of coronavirus. Never has it designed, made or leaked Covid-19. On the origins-tracing of the virus, China firmly opposes all forms of political manipulation.”

What Gabbard is saying is Fauci funded GoF research. In the first place, even to assume that such research funding was true, where is the zoonotic proof that the animal virus was manipulated for human transmission and where is the proof of a lab leak?

That what was later named Covid 19, was a virus capable of human transmission. Scientifically, no one is denying the virus was already preexisting as an animal virus.

What my book primarily dealt with were indications that way before the incident at Wuhan, there were already proofs of the existence of the virus that was transmitting through humans, manifesting without name, in many places. causing outbreaks within the United States and subsequently elsewhere in the world.

My inclination therefore has been to believe that the virus mutated through natural causes through time.

This testimony of former Robert Redfield, American virologist former director of the US Center for Disease Control said it all.

This first widely-reported  outbreak of the yet unnamed disease was in a senior citizen facility in Springfield, Fairfax County, Virginia on June 30, 2019, predating whatever happened in Wuhan  four months after

This is not to divert the issue. Pentagon City is only 15 minutes away via 395 from Springfield, and both are only an hour drive via Interstate 495 and 270 to Fort Dietrich, the U.S. Army installation in Frederick, Maryland, globally recognized as the center of Department of Defense biomedical research. Spanning 1,200 acres, it hosts a multi-agency campus focusing on infectious diseases, biodefense, and medical materiel management.

North of the Pentagon is the Naval Support Activity in Bethesda, which houses the renowned Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and the National Institute of Health, the famous Andrews Air Force Base where the presidential plane Air Force One is hangered, the Anacostia Bolling Joint Base, the Washington Navy Yard and Fort George Meade that hosts the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command.

South of Springfield are Fort Belvoir and Marine Corp Base Quantico. All told, the 20-mile radius around Springfield is basically the bedroom community for active and retired military personnel.

Why are these benchmarks relevant to the discussion?

The 7th CISM Military World Games, held in Wuhan, China from October 18–27, 2019, featured over 9,300 athletes from 110 countries competing in 329 events across 27 sports.

China sent a record delegation of 553 participants, and approximately 230,000 volunteers supported the event.

The US sent a delegation of 369 members, composed of 219 military personnel and 44 civilian coaches and staff, the largest in history for the U.S. military.

The games were not without controversy. Some participants developed Covid-like respiratory symptom foremost were seven U.S. service members between October 18, 2019, and January 21, 2020. This has led to ongoing discussions and calls for further investigation into the timeline and origins of the virus, though official timelines show the first confirmed cases in China occurred in December 2019, some Italian studies have found antibodies in blood samples from autumn 2019, suggesting early exposure.

My thesis was that at least one of the military athletes brought in the virus from outside China.

The US government investigations have so far declassified no details to this date, regarding Patient Zero, or the first person who was reported “contaminated” in Wuhan.

U.S. military reservist and cyclist named Maatje Benassi was the first to allegedly spread the virus in Wuhan.

It was utmost possibility that she contaminated others, including the American team on the way to Wuhan itself, which explained why most of them could not perform their best. Whenever the US participates, it usually performs within the top five. Isn’t it curious that the US delegation only landed 35th place overall on the medal table securing only a total of 8 medals – 3 silver and 5 bronze?

Benassi, and his team members, could not have contracted the virus there because the virus presumes an incubation period that started before they have even flown to China.

Official reports, however, indicated that she was unfortunately targeted as a subject of a supposedly unfounded internet conspiracy theory regarding the origin of Covid 19.

I disagree. The Wuhan military games could have been the most-likely superspreader event. It has been staring at everyone straight to their faces, and the US Congress wanted it investigated. But not one of the US delegation was recalled for testing and debriefing, suggesting a commonsensical sign of a coverup.

Read: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/23/congress-wuhan-military-games-2019-covid/

The first publicly acknowledged case of the novel coronavirus emerged on November 17, or after the military games, according to Chinese government data reviewed by the South China Morning Post at the same time WIV researchers reported sick. The Post said the data it reviewed, suggested that the virus was first contracted by a 55-year-old man from China’s Hubei province.

It wasn’t until late December that Chinese officially realized they had a new virus on their hands. China reported the initial pneumonia cluster to the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office in China on December 31, 2019. Chinese health officials also directly notified the WHO headquarters in Geneva and other global health agencies about the outbreak.

But why are the investigative agencies aggressive in factfinding after Wuhan, but not before Wuhan?

The incontrovertible fact is that whether Covid 19 broke out in Wuhan allegedly due to a GoF research that caused a lab leak , or brought in by some athletes in the war games, China did not cause the pandemic because it is the Americans who controlled the joystick from the very beginning.

The Untouchable Baric

Dr. Ralph Baric, is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the UNC Chapel Hill campus, who has spent the past three decades as a world leader in the study of coronaviruses.

Critics, including former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, have claimed Baric was the “scientific mastermind” behind an intentionally engineered Covid-19 as a part of a biodefense program’ and that the United States’ role in it was substantial.

In a podcast, Redfield made direct accusation that Covid 19 was started in a lab at UNC-Chapel Hill and not a lab in Wuhan, China: “When you look at China, their accountability is not in the lab work and the creation of the virus. Their accountability is not following the international health regulations after they realized that they had a problem and allowing the CDC within 48 hours like to help them as they were obligated based on a treaty for research the US funded through National Institutes of Health, the State Department, USAID and the Defense Department.”

This stems from his development of “reverse genetics” techniques, which allowed Baric to create chimeric coronaviruses (mixing genes from different viruses) to study how pathogens might jump from animals to humans.

Redfield reiterated “I think there is a real possibility that the virus’s birthplace was Chapel Hill.”

Curiously, Baric has also researched on how coronaviruses replicate, spread, and interact with the immune system. His laboratory has played a vital role in testing mRNA-LNP COVID-19 vaccines in mice and helping design strategies against mutated variants.

Conclusion

Tulsi Gabbard posted in X, “It’s time the American people learn the real story.

“The Covid-19 pandemic caused tremendous hardship and pain for millions of our fellow Americans and for countless people around the world. After years of lies, censorship, and cover ups, the American people deserve transparency, truth, and accountability.

“The tactics used to hide the truth are straight from the deep state playbook: politicized self-serving leaders like Dr. Fauci covered up their own wrongdoing and abuses of power, manipulated intelligence, lied to Congress, and undermined a duly elected President by restricting his access to vital facts needed to keep the country safe.”

But it seems, Gabbard’s gains are merely pyrrhic.

Dr. Fauci has been granted a pardon by former President Joe Biden.                         

Dr. Barric played a foundational role in the testing and development of the Moderna vaccine. His lab’s decades of prior coronavirus research laid the groundwork for the mRNA technology used by both Moderna and Pfizer.

• Vaccine Early Research: Explore his lab’s early work establishing vaccine platforms and animal models for coronaviruses via the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
• Platforms: Read about Baric’s pioneering research on broad-spectrum vaccine candidates and how natural immunity and vaccinations interact in the UNC Gillins School of Global Public Health update on hybrid immunity.
• Variant Efficacy: Learn how SARS-CoV-2 mutations (such as the D614G strain) impact the efficacy of vaccines in development via the UNC Health care Newsroom.
• Academic Publications: Access his comprehensive catalog of peer-reviewed articles and clinical trial developments involving SARS-CoV-2 immunity and spike-protein vaccines on  Science Direct.

All that said,

The US medical industry hit it bigtime. The United States tolled highest in the world – Out of the total 704,753,890 cases, it bore 16% at 111,820,082.

The biggest losers are the American people.

Out of 7,010,681 deaths in the world, the United State suffered almost 1/5 at 1,219,487 or  18%.

Big Pharma took the spoils of the pandemic.

Moderna made $46 billion in vaccine sales, while Pfizer $91 billion.

Fauci and Baric, and the Deep State must have been laughing all the way to the bank.

It’s all about vaccines, stupid!

   

Email: contact@asiancenturyph.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/asiancenturyph/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AsianCenturyPH

Substack:

Also read: