During the weeks of research that I have been conducting on the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the same names keep coming up.  First, it was Fauci, then Dr. Ralph Baric, and Dr. Shi Zhengli.  There is one name, however, which keeps coming up related to the virus, tied to the funding, research, and now, the potential ongoing cover-up of gain-of-function research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  That name is Peter Daszak.

Daszak is the President of EcoHealth Alliance, the organization which has funneled at least $600,000 to the WIV in the course of the last several years. Daszak also has conducted his own research in conjunction with Dr. Shi Zhengli of the WIV, some of which is categorically and indisputably gain-of-function.  But it seems that no matter where you turn on this story, Daszak is there. On May 11th, Dr. Anthony Fauci was questioned by Sen. Rand Paul about the funding the NIH and NIAID had sent to the WIV, particularly through the EcoHealth Alliance, which was given a $3.7 million grant to study the pathogenesis of bat coronaviruses.  Fauci dismissed Senator Paul’s comments as ignorant and “misinformation,” essentially stating that Sen. Paul didn’t understand and that the NIH “does not fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

Those statements ironically later were determined to be categorically false.  The NIH’s funding through Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance was used to fund at least two gain-of-function studies at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016 and 2017.  In fact, Daszak, along with Dr. Shi Zhengli, simulated the mutation (via computer) of coronavirus strains as far back as 2011, with the findings published in 2013, before the most recent grant was awarded. That Daszak was conducting gain-of-function studies and conducting them at the WIV, is indisputable.

While the performance of this type of research in itself is not an issue alone, the subsequent denials from Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance, and officials with the WIV are telling.  Why would one feel the need to lie about whether or not the lab was conducting the research (a fact that is, again, indisputable) if the research was not somehow responsible for the creation and release of the SARS-CoV-2 virus?

To further complicate the issue, Daszak has been running defense on the virus since before we’d even determined the severity of it.  In the WHO’s report, “Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19),” the WHO determined that the virus likely originated from a zoonotic spillover (or natural mutation) event, thus acquitting the WIV of any liability in the release of the virus.  Remember, the same determination about the SARS-CoV outbreak took years to accomplish, while the Chinese report was completed on February 24th, 2020.  Again, the report found that the initial infection was a “zoonotic source” yet couldn’t determine what that source was. The first US case of COVID-19 that was determined to not come from China wasn’t identified until February 26th.  And just who do you suppose was one of the authors of the WHO report and the only American to participate in the process?  Dr. Peter Daszak.

Yet, the conflicts of interest do not stop there.  Daszak, who again funded and investigated the lab, was later used by Facebook’s fact-checker, Science Feedback, as an expert and was cited in fact-check articles regarding the source of SARS-CoV-2. Those articles were used by Facebook to present what now has been proven to be misinformation and to deplatform those who posited that a lab leak was a possible pandemic origin, at the behest of Daszak, who is critically invested in distancing himself from the potential of a lab release.

This continues to look more and more like a cover-up, and that Peter Daszak is at the center of it all. Stay tuned as we continue to chase down all of the details of this story.