Pirola, the new Covid variant dubbed the ‘real deal’ by experts, may not be as dangerous as initially feared, new data suggests. 

Early results from a US lab found those who had previously been infected with Covid or had a jab had a similar level of immunity to other fellow Omicron Covid variants. 

While this won’t stop people from catching the virus, it suggests the UK’s wall of immunity should still help prevent many people from becoming severely ill.   

Experts say however this depends on the success of the autumn jab drive topping up immunity levels, which has been brought forward starting next week.  

Four Pirola cases have now been officially confirmed in the UK, after Scotland recorded an additional case yesterday.

Alarm bells were initially raised due to Pirola, technically called BA.2.86, having a catalogue of 35 mutations which experts feared could help it to evade immune defences, driving up infections and cases of severe illness.

But the US study suggests that despite Pirola coming from a different branch of the Omicron family trees than other recent and less concerning variants, including Eris and Arcturus, the protection offered from jabs and prior infection still holds.  

British experts today welcomed findings of US data labelling it ‘encouraging’ and said it ‘reinforces the value’ of the UK’s autumn Covid booster campaign. 

Others however cautioned that the results ‘only tell part of the story’ and it is still ‘difficult to say’ whether the strain will really take off.   

The research, published by the Dan Barouch Lab, part of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Harvard University School of Medicine, involved 66 volunteers. 

Scientists analysed how well the antibodies of 44 of the participants — who had all received a Covid vaccine — neutralized 10 Omicron subvariants including BA.2.86. 

Antibodies are a key part of the immune response to Covid and a critical indicator of how likely someone is to be protected. 

They found the neutralising antibody (NAb) response was lower in BA.2.86 than its ancestor BA.2, suggests people are less protected against Pirola. 

However, when compared to other Omicron variants currently circulating, the results were similar suggesting Pirola is no better at dodging immunity.  

Researchers also compared the NAb response in the 22 who had not received a bivalent booster vaccine for up to six months. 

Of these, those with the highest levels of neutralizing antibodies against BA.2.86 had recently recovered from an Omicron infection. 

The results align with previous experiments by labs in China and Sweden last month.

Using the blood of vaccinated mice and from vaccinated and recently infected people, researchers in China found BA.2.86 can partially evade our immunity but was around 60 per cent less infectious than XBB.1.5 virus, nicknamed Kraken.

At the time scientists suggested this may explain why the strain has been detected in so many different countries, but only at low levels.

In a second Swedish experiment, researchers found that antibodies from older blood samples from late 2022 struggled to neutralize BA.2.86. 

But more recent blood samples, from more recent Covid waves, showed improved efficacy. 

Professor Stephen Griffin, an infectious disease expert at the University of Leeds, told MailOnline: ‘It is welcome news to see studies emerging that show BA.2.86 to perhaps be somewhat less antibody evasive than suspected.’

‘This begs the question though, of how this very divergent virus has spread across multiple continents. 

‘The answer may lie in another advantage that the virus has over present dominant XBB strains that we have not yet assessed. 

‘This may involve evading the very early, or “innate” immune response, or possibly infection of a different part of the lungs.’

‘It is hard to tell the extent of spread due to limited testing, so it is welcome to see more.’ 

The study however was small and further research is required, he noted.  

He also added: ‘Only with increased numbers will we see whether more severe disease occurs at the population level, we cannot tell this yet from the limited number of documented cases. 

‘Whether or not BA.2.86 becomes a variant of concern, it represents another new evolutionary branch for the virus that further demonstrates the folly of trying to treat SARS2 like other respiratory viruses. 

‘We should act preemptively, including mitigations and broadening the vaccine programme.’

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, also told MailOnline today: ‘Data from three different labs provides evidence that the immune evasiveness of the BA.2.86 variant isn’t as extreme as originally feared. 

‘These early studies suggest that previous vaccinations and infections should provide protection from severe disease for most people. 

‘This work also reinforces the value of the autumn booster vaccine campaign, particularly the use of XBB-lineage updated mRNA vaccines.’ 

He added: ‘Other data indicates that the BA.2.86 variant is less infectious than previous Omicron variants, at least in laboratory studies. 

‘It remains a puzzle as to why this variant is spreading. 

‘It could be due to other changes in the virus – noting that, like other variants, this one is continuing to change. 

‘That’s why we can’t be complacent and need to keep monitoring for the spread of infection and particularly for new variants.’ 

Responding to the findings, UKHSA epidemiologist Meaghan Kall, also tweeted: ‘This is very encouraging for XBB vaccines. 

‘Now with three sets of data with similar results, I am feeling more confident of this result. 

In a second tweet addressing the data, she added: ‘Right now our best protection against a bad Covid season is the booster.

‘With the autumn booster campaign starting in days and XBB monovalent vaccine in the pipeline, these lab data — comparing with/without XBB infection — suggest a XBB vaccine will be effective vs BA.2.86.’

Concerns over the variant prompted the Department of Health and Social Care to u-turn on the autumn Covid and flu jab drive start date, with vaccinations for care home residents and vulnerable adults now starting earlier than scheduled.

GPs and pharmacies are now set to begin dishing out the jabs under the autumn booster campaign from September 11, a full month earlier than originally planned.

Ministers said they had made the decision to reduce pressure on the health service while scientists rush to learn more about Pirola.

Globally the variant has now been spotted in the UK, US, Israel, Denmark, South Africa, Portugal, Sweden, Canada, France, Thailand and Switzerland.

But Professor Paul Hunter, a respected infectious disease specialist at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline: ‘It is now difficult to say whether a new variant will really take off or not.’ 

He added: ‘For most people immunity to infection will be being driven primarily by what infections they have already had and recovered from rather than their recent vaccination history. 

‘But for the vulnerable immunisation remains important to prevent severe disease, hospitalisation.’

It is still unclear how long the variant has been in circulation, he noted and ‘is only now cropping up in countries that still do a reasonable amount of sequencing’.

Meanwhile, Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist from the University of Reading, told MailOnline: ‘Looking at the effectiveness of antibodies in people’s blood is useful, but only tells part of the story. 

‘Immunity is complex and made up of lots of different components, of which antibodies are just one important factor, and while these findings are encouraging, they probably don’t tell the whole story. 

‘And studies in a lab often don’t mirror exactly what happens in the real world.’

He added: ‘We know that immunity induced by vaccines is excellent at protecting against disease, but not so good at protecting against transmission, so even very effective protection against getting ill may not stop BA.2.86 spreading around the world.’

Virologists have also warned it is too early to reliably pinpoint if BA.2.86 has any new specific symptoms, as scientists are still analysing the recently discovered cases. 

Professor Francois Balloux from University College London told MailOnline: ‘Based on the tiny number of BA.2.86 cases diagnosed to date there is no evidence for, but also no reason to expect, a significant shift in symptoms.’

Professor Young, also added that a combination of immunity induced by previous infections, Covid vaccinations and ‘a combination of changes in the virus’ has seen Covid symptoms alter over the last three years. 

‘It’s much more like a cold now than when we first experienced Covid,’ he said.

However, he noted: ‘That doesn’t mean that those who are more vulnerable due to underlying conditions won’t suffer more severe symptoms if infected with BA.2.86.’

During a meeting last week the UKHSA’s variant technical group confirmed the UK’s three known BA.2.86 cases at the time, were identified through hospital testing and ‘have no known recent travel history’. 

The group is tasked with forecasting scenarios of Covid variants and producing assessments on the risk of emerging strains. 

‘The first UK case was mildly unwell and the second UK case — in England — did not have respiratory symptoms’, they said. 

A third case in Scotland however was symptomatic. But officials noted there was no laboratory data available yet, with two of the UK samples currently ‘in culture’.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) yesterday also confirmed a second case in Scotland had been identified through PCR testing. 

But details surrounding the fourth case have not yet been disclosed. 

These are also signs the virus is spreading within the community with PHS confirming Pirola had also been found in wastewater testing, in an undisclosed part of the country. 

Scientists can test community wastewater samples to monitor the prevalence of the virus through the stools of infected people. 

It comes as Covid cases in the UK are rising sharply — almost doubling in a month — just as the country heads into the autumn when the NHS gets busier.  

Data from the ZOE health study shows there were 93,432 new daily cases of symptomatic infection on September 2 — up from about 50,000 at the start of August. 

The study, which is based on data from millions of users of the ZOE app, estimates there are around 1.17million people in the UK with the virus right now – roughly one in 57. 

But the estimated peak of the pandemic, in cases, was in late March 2022, where at one point about 4.9million people were thought to have the virus.

Experts predict Covid cases will continue to rise as the UK heads into the autumn, as people mix more indoors.

This could contribute to NHS pressures, with the season traditionally a busier period for the NHS than summer. 

Would seminal Beatles classic Abbey Road have been so memorable if it had been called Everest – and featured George Harrison smoking a cigarette in front of a snow-covered volcano on the cover instead of the Fab Four crossing the street in London?

That is one of several questions posed by digital experts today – who have re-imagined how some of the world’s most iconic album covers might have looked if they had been released under their original working titles.

The study, from digital agency WMG, has used image generation technology instead of the names by which they are now known the world over.

An AI bot has predicted what iconic album covers might have looked like if world-famous artists including The Beatles and Queen had plumped for the original record names.

Using the working titles of some of music’s most legendary albums, SEO and digital marketing experts WMG used AI tool Midjourney to visualise what their covers could have looked like.

Using these alternative titles that the records would have been called, the AI bot has conjured up a number of visually dazzling pieces of artwork – which could have changed the course of music history.

The AI technology re-imagined what The Beatles’ 1969 Abbey Road album could have looked like through to the Arctic Monkeys’ 2011 Suck it and See.

It takes pit-stops along the way with David Bowie’s 1976 album Station to Station, Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours, Michael Jackson’s 1982 record Thriller and Nirvana’s 1991 Nevermind, among others.

Ian Lloyd, Managing Director for WMG, said: ‘It never fails to amaze us just how incredible AI can be, especially when it comes to creating visual assets.

‘We were taken aback by some of the incredibly detailed imagery the AI tool Midjourney can cook up using just a few prompts from us.

‘That said, it’s our belief that some album covers are truly iconic and therefore could never be anything other than the ones many of us know and love.’

Abbey Road was the final album The Beatles recorded – spawning an iconic image of the Fab Four striding across a zebra crossing on Abbey Road outside EMI studios in London back in 1969.

But the image, that’s now part of pop culture history, nearly didn’t make the light of day.

The LP was almost named Everest after the brand of cigarettes that engineer Geoff Emerick smoked during the recording sessions.

The AI image generation tool drew inspiration from the cigarettes and its namesake – the world’s highest mountain.

The re-imagined album features a man with a moustache sporting an orange jacket and a hat while puffing on a cig with the 29,000ft-high mountain looming in the background.

Queen’s studio album The Miracle was released in 1989 and was named after a song included on the album tracklist.

What even some of the biggest Queen fans may not realise, is that the album was due to be called The Invisible Man after another hit track.

The AI bot was forced to get creative here donning the four invisible blokes in brightly-coloured suits and gloves.

Named after one of the 1982 album’s best-known hits, Michael Jackson’s Thriller cover simply featured the artist looking effortlessly suave in a white suit with a contrasting black shirt and belt.

But as the album was nearly called Starlight it’s understandable that AI went down the twinkly different route when reimagining this album cover.

The 1977 album Rumours by Fleetwood Mac featured some of the band’s best-loved songs, including The Chain and Go Your Own Way.

On the cover of the version of the album released by the band, stylised black and white imagery of band members Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood is set against a contrasting yellow backdrop.

Despite being a far cry from the chosen album artwork, the reworked cover does seem to have taken a little inspiration from the Rumours cover for one based on the album’s previous name Yesterday’s Gone.

It emulates the style and feel of Fleetwood Mac and their bohemian chic beautifully.

Grunge legends Nirvana released their album Nevermind in 1991, the cover of which infamously featured a baby swimming underwater towards a dollar bill.

With the album previously being titled, Sheep or Sheeple, the AI bot Midjourney plumped to feature the woolly critters on the cover.

Bowie is undoubtedly one of the most recognisable artists of our time, both in terms of voice and aesthetics. This AI adaptation of his album art, Station to Station, reflects his eclectic style to the letter.

The album was once intended to be called Golden Years and this colourful version of the cover certainly nails his signature style, especially when compared to the actual cover, which is much moodier in comparison.

Suck it and See is the 2011 album from Sheffield band the Arctic Monkeys, however the album was once due to be called The Rain-Shaped Shimmer Trap.

Also, The Rolling Stones nearly called their Exile on Main Street double album Tropical Disease and The Beatles’ Revolver was almost called Abracadabra. 

While the cover eventually released kept things simple, AI has reimagined the much-loved album as an abstract yet futuristic grey coloured shape.

SEO and Digital Marketing experts WMG researched the working titles of famous albums and used AI tool Midjourney to visualise what iconic album covers could have looked like.

Ian Lloyd, Managing Director for WMG, said: ‘Love it or hate it AI has been at the centre of much discussion for months now, exploding into almost all areas of our day-to-day lives.

‘One space that has seen a significant impact from the rise of AI is popular culture, specifically the music industry.

‘Artists and producers alike have been openly experimenting with the technology for several years now.

‘It’s certainly been fun experimenting with AI for these reimagined album covers.’

Biden laughs at query on handing over bank records amid Hunter probe

By Nikki Schwab, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Updated: 12:32 EDT, 1 September 2023

Advertisement

President Joe Biden laughed off a question Thursday about whether he would share his bank records with Congressional Republicans who are probing his son Hunter’s business deals and threatening with opening an impeachment inquiry. 

Biden made a surprise visit to FEMA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. amid the agency’s Hurricane Idalia response and in the aftermath of the deadly wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui. 

There the 80-year-old president answered several questions from reporters after bringing pizzas and addressing FEMA’s workforce. 

After answering questions about overdose awareness day, a potential government shutdown and if he’d spoken to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who suffered from another health scare earlier this week, he laughed when asked if he’d hand over his bank records to the House GOP. 

‘Let’s talk about why I’m here,’ he said, and then answered an addition question on whether he wanted Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend next week’s G20 summit in India and revealed he would travel to Florida on Saturday to survey storm damage.

Biden has continually blown off questions about House Republicans’ investigations into son Hunter’s business deals in Ukraine and China but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy raised the stakes Sunday by saying an impeachment inquiry ‘is a natural step forward.’ 

‘That provides Congress the apex of legal power to get all the information they need,’ the California Republican said in an interview on Fox News. 

Despite there being no solid evidence linking the president to his son’s business deals, which were taking place at the height of Hunter’s crack cocaine addiction, McCarthy insisted there was a ‘culture of corruption that’s been happening within the entire Biden family.’ 

On Friday, NBC News reported that the White House had stood up a ‘war room’ of two dozen lawyers, legislative aides and communications staff to aggressively respond to a Republican impeachment inquiry, which comes as Biden is running for reelection. 

Sources told the network that the ‘war room’ team plans a vigorous response and will characterize the GOP’s efforts as a fact-free partisan sham that shows the party’s ‘penchant for chaos,’ NBC said. 

‘Comparing this to past impeachments isn’t apples to apples or even apples to oranges; it’s apples to elephants,’ one White House aide told NBC. ‘Never in modern history has an impeachment been based on no evidence whatsoever.’ 

It’s no surprise that some of the loudest voices backing impeachment are also top surrogates for former President Donald Trump. 

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told constituents Thursday night that she wouldn’t vote to fund the government unless House Republicans opened up an impeachment inquiry on Biden. 

‘I’ve already decided that I will not vote to fund the government unless we pass an impeachment inquiry on Joe Biden,’ Greene said at a Floyd County, Georgia town hall. 

She also pushed to have Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has now twice indicted Trump, defunded and Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss fired. 

Weiss, a Trump appointee, was elevated to special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland last month. 

He’s overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax and gun case in Delaware federal court. 

Greene announcement received cheers and applause from the conservative crowd. 

In a statement on Thursday night, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said: ‘The last thing the American people deserve is for extreme House members to trigger a government shutdown that hurts our economy, undermines our disaster preparedness, and forces our troops to work without guaranteed pay.’ 

‘The House Republicans responsible for keeping the government open already made a promise to the American public about government funding, and it would be a shame for them to break their word and fail the country because they caved to the hardcore fringe of their party in prioritizing a baseless impeachment stunt over high stakes needs Americans care about deeply – like fighting fentanyl trafficking, protecting our national security, and funding FEMA,’ he added.  

Germany records no growth in the three months to June

By City & Finance Reporter

Updated: 05:06 EDT, 29 July 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

POPULAR MONEY SECTIONS
Take me to…

A Russian free-diver who already had at least 25 world records under his belt may have just smashed two more after descending 442 ft on a single breath twice.

Alexey Molchanov, 36, undertook two dives on Friday and Saturday at the world’s second-deepest marine cavern, Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas.  

The Russian has now been dubbed the ‘Deepest Man on Earth’ after he reached the astonishing depth of 442 feet (133 metres) holding his breath for the duration of 4 min 42 sec.

He was competing in the discipline of free immersion apnea, in which a free-diver descends in a vertical line by pulling on a rope without any help from weights or fins.

The diver said following the incredible feet: ‘My dive felt good, but I’m tired! Overall I felt strong, I felt clean as well but it’s not my favorite discipline.’ 

His second dive on Saturday may also result in a record after drugs tests are returned, which saw him reach the same depths but in a shorter time of 4 minutes and 13 seconds, The Times reports.

The depth is equivalent to a 40-storey building, meaning Molchanov descended and ascended this in a matter of minutes just using a dive line. 

Molchanov is the son of Natalia Molchonova, who many considered the world’s greatest freediver before her disappearance off the coast near Formentera, Spain eight years ago.

Molchonova held the most world records of a free-diver in history with 42 titles, and her son has followed in her footsteps, being the current most-decorated diver.

He smashed a free immersion depth record set in May by the Croatian Petar Klovar at 128m, according to world free-diving body AIDA.

The chief of safety at the Vertical Blue diving competition, Marco Cosentino, had this to say about Molchanov:

‘Alexey is not only the world’s best, he’s from an entirely different universe! He makes everything look so effortless which belies what it actually takes to do what he does. He is incredible.’

The 31-time world champion is a great of diving and runs a school named in honour of his late mother.

Among his litany of records, Molchanov previously achieved the deepest free dive under ice with fins, reaching a depth of 262 feet in just two minutes.

He has also claimed the last five world records in the constant weight category – another style of diving which allows divers to use a fin. 

Prior to his dives this weekend, he reached 426 feet in the Bahamas in 2018, when he secured the warm water world record.

And in 2015, he reached staggering depths of 846 feet in the AIDA Pool World Championships in Belgrade.

As an experienced free-diver, Molchanov can hold his breath for close to nine minutes.

He has honed his mother’s technique of ‘deconcentration’ during his dives, meaning, instead of becoming overwhelmed by the place, he detaches from it visually and psychologically. 

He said in 2021: ‘For me, freediving is not just a job or hobby, but a life’s work, and I am glad to have this new opportunity to share this amazing sport with as large an audience as possible.

‘This is not even just a sport, but a way to learn how to manage your psychological state.’

Molchanov is married to Elena Sokolova, a Russian freestyle swimmer who competed in both the 2008 and 2012 Olympic games.

Dr Anthony Fauci has claimed he would have ‘no problem at all’ if the GOP were to go through his records for connections to the Covid lab leak theory.

The White House’s top pandemic adviser said he would be ‘happy to cooperate’ with any probe because he had ‘nothing to hide’.

Republicans are poised to take the House, which will grant them the power to force Dr Fauci to hand over all official emails, letters, and documents involving him in his capacity as a government worker concerning the pandemic.  

Several GOP lawmakers have signaled their intent to probe Dr Fauci’s involvement in the emergence of the pandemic.

Republican Senator Rand Paul said in February during a podcast interview: ‘If I have subpoena power, we’ll go after every one of [Fauci’s] records.’

The Democrats have kept the Senate in the midterm elections, but the Republicans are likely to take the House, meaning they can issue a subpoena to gain documents from Dr Fauci. 

Dr Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD), which previously funneled money into the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab at the center of the lab leak theory.

The lab was known to be experimenting with Covid’s closest relatives before the pandemic, and a US intelligence report told of several scientists who worked at the lab who fell ill with a mysterious flu-like sickness in November 2019.

Dr Fauci was a staunch critic of lab leak early in pandemic, denouncing it as a conspiracy theory.

But he has changed his tune in recent months as indirect evidence mounts and there is still no sign of animal host to cement the theory that the virus jumped from animals to humans.

Dr Fauci was quizzed about Paul’s warning on Saturday, The Hill reported.

He told reporters at the National Portrait Gallery gala in Washington: ‘I have nothing to hide at all, despite the accusations that I’m hiding something. 

‘I have nothing that I could not explain clearly to the country and justify.’

Asked if the Republicans not winning control of the Senate would be a ‘relief’, Dr Fauci said: ‘It doesn’t matter to me how the elections go.

‘If they have oversight hearings, I’m happy to cooperate. And if they don’t, that’s good, too. I could get on with other things.’

Dr Fauci, 81, announced in August that he would be stepping down from his role as Biden’s medical advisor in December.

He is set to rake in the highest-ever federal government retirement package in US history with his annual payment exceeding $350,000, according to a Forbes estimate.

The GOP is one seat away from taking control of the House, and Republicans there have also voiced their intentions to investigate Dr Fauci, even after he retires from government service.

In August, House Oversight and Reform Committee ranking member James Comer said in a statement: ‘Retirement can’t shield Dr Fauci from congressional oversight.’

In the same month, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted: ‘Dr Fauci lost the trust of the American people when his guidance unnecessarily kept schools closed and businesses shut while obscuring questions about his knowledge on the origins of Covid.

‘He owes the American people answers. A @HouseGOP majority will hold him accountable.’

In a leaked email from 2020, disgraced scientist Dr Peter Daszak appeared to express gratitude to Dr Fauci for downplaying the theory that the Covid-19 was created in a lab.

Some allege that Dr Fauci, whose agency in 2014 issued a $3.7million grant to EcoHealth Alliance, directly contributed to the pandemic spread by providing funds that were used to support gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

EcoHealth issued WIV nearly $600,000 in sub-awards before the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suspended the grant in July 2020 due its controversial work, Vanity Fair reported.

There are multiple theories surrounding the birth of the Covid pandemic, with natural-origin proponents arguing the virus jumped from a bat host to an intermediate species and then infected humans.

Others suspected a lab-related incident from the ‘inadvertent exposure of a scientist during field research to the accidental release of a natural or manipulated strain during laboratory work,’ the magazine claimed.

There is reportedly a ‘lack of concrete evidence’ to support either theory, prompting journalists, scientists and other sleuths to place scrutiny on Dr Daszak, EcoHealth, and WIV researchers for the work in the lab, as well as Dr Fauci for indirectly supplying U.S. government funds to the facility.’

In June 2021, biologist Jesse Bloom – whom colleagues allege wanted to ‘dig deep and discover the truth’ about how Covid evolved – confronted Dr Fauci by providing him with a preprint of a paper he was seeking to have peer reviewed and published.

Dr Bloom’s paper, which was obtained by Vanity Fair, detailed how early genomic sequences of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, had ‘somehow vanished without a trace’.

The biologist claims the genomic sequences were initially published in a Chinese paper but had since been deleted from NIH databases at the ‘request of researchers in Wuhan’.

Dr Bloom, alleging the deleted genomic sequences could be ‘key to tracking when the virus emerged and how it might have evolved,’ believed the disappearance of the sequences ‘raised the possibility’ that the Chinese government was trying to cover-up evidence about the early spread of Covid.

After receiving the preprint of Dr Bloom’s paper, Dr Fauci and his boss, NIH director Francis Collins, allegedly organized a Zoom meeting with the biologist to discuss his findings.

Four additional scientists, biologist Kristian Andersen and virologist Robert Garry, who were invited by the NIH, and biologists Sergei Pond and Rasmus Nielsen, who were invited by Bloom, attended the call.

After he presented his research, Dr Bloom claims Dr Andersen interjected, claiming his preprint was ‘deeply troubling.’

Andersen reportedly told the research that NIH policy entitled the Chinese scientists to delete their sequences from the database if they wanted to and that it was ‘unethical’ for Dr Bloom to analyze them further.

He also allegedly claimed ‘there was nothing unusual about the early genomic sequences in Wuhan,’ prompting a heated argument between Andersen and Nielsen.

‘Fauci then weighed in, objecting to the preprint’s description of Chinese scientists ‘surreptitiously’ deleting the sequences,’ Vanity Fair stated, claiming the immunologist said: ‘The word was loaded and the reason they’d asked for the deletions was unknown.’