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BEIJING (AP) The first scientist to publish a sequence of the COVID-19 virus in China said he was allowed back into his lab after he spent days locked outside, sitting in protest.
Zhang Yongzhen wrote in an online post on Wednesday, just past midnight, that the medical center that hosts his lab had tentatively agreed to allow him and his team to return and continue their research for the time being.
Now, team members can enter and leave the laboratory freely, Zhang wrote in a post on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. He added that he is negotiating a plan to relocate the lab in a way that doesnt disrupt his teams work with the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, which hosts Zhangs lab.
Zhang and his team were suddenly told they had to leave their lab for renovations on Thursday, setting off the dispute, he said in an earlier post that was later deleted. On Sunday, Zhang began a sit-in protest outside his lab after he found he was locked out, a sign of continuing pressure on Chinese scientists conducting research on the coronavirus.
Zhang sat outside on flattened cardboard in drizzling rain, and members of his team unfurled a banner that read Resume normal scientific research work, pictures posted online show. News of the protest spread widely on Chinese social media, putting pressure on local authorities.
In an online statement Monday, the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center said that Zhangs lab was closed for safety reasons while being renovated. It added that it had provided Zhangs team an alternative laboratory space.
But Zhang responded the same day his team wasnt offered an alternative until after they were notified of their eviction, and the lab offered didnt meet safety standards for conducting their research, leaving his team in limbo.
Zhangs dispute with his host institution was the latest in a series of setbacks, demotions and ousters since the virologist published the sequence in January 2020 without state approval.
Beijing has sought to control information related to the virus since it first emerged. An Associated Press investigation found that the government froze domestic and international efforts to trace it from the first weeks of the outbreak. These days, labs are closed, collaborations shattered, foreign scientists forced out and some Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country.
Zhangs ordeal started when he and his team decoded the virus on Jan. 5, 2020, and wrote an internal notice warning Chinese authorities of its potential to spread but did not make the sequence public. The next day, Zhangs lab was ordered to close temporarily by Chinas top health official, and Zhang came under pressure from the authorities.
Foreign scientists soon learned that Zhang and other Chinese scientists had deciphered the virus and called on China to release the sequence. Zhang published it on Jan. 11, 2020, despite a lack of permission from Chinese health officials.
Sequencing a virus is key to the development of test kits, disease control measures and vaccinations. The virus eventually spread to every corner of the world, triggering a pandemic that disrupted lives and commerce, prompted widespread lockdowns and killed millions of people.
Zhang was awarded prizes overseas in recognition for his work. But health officials removed him from a post at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and barred him from collaborating with some of his former partners, hindering his research.
Still, Zhang retains support from some in the government. Though some of Zhangs online posts were deleted, his sit-in protest was reported widely in Chinas state-controlled media, indicating divisions within the Chinese government on how to deal with Zhang and his team.
Thank you to my online followers and people from all walks of life for your concern and strong support over the past few days! Zhang wrote in his post Wednesday.
The appearance of virology researcher Peter Daszak, PhD, whose organization worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to study bat coronaviruses, drew the expected tough questions from House Republicans at a hearing Wednesday, but Democrats weren't letting Daszak off the hook either.
"Today we'll hear from both sides that there are serious concerns about EcoHealth Alliance's failure to comply with reporting requirements for federal grantees -- concerns that draw into question whether you, Dr. Daszak, sought to deliberately mislead regulators at NIH and NIAID [the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases]," Rep. Raul Ruiz, MD, (D-Calif.) ranking member of the House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, said at a hearing featuring Daszak as the lone witness. "We will also examine whether Dr. Daszak, beyond his obligations as an employee of a federally funded grantee, acted with integrity in his engagement with the possibility that COVID-19 resulted from a research-related incident."
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) asked Daszak, who is president of the EcoHealth Alliance, about why he appeared to mislead the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in relation to the Wuhan lab's potential participation when his organization submitted a grant application -- which was never funded -- for proposed coronavirus research to be done in cooperation with the University of North Carolina. "That kind of raises some questions for me," she said. "Why did you even entertain the thought of minimizing and apparently omitting the extent of Wuhan's involvement?"
Daszak denied he had done that. "I talked to the DARPA staff right at the beginning ... and asked them straight up in an email chain, 'Is it OK to propose this, to work with colleagues in China on coronaviruses from China?'" he said. "They said, 'Yes.' So there was no intent to hide any China involvement. They're in the proposal."
Dingell remained unconvinced. "My Democratic colleagues and I want to emphasize the importance of transparency," she said. "We believe in a full accounting of facts, and I believe we have been very fair with you ... But to the extent you've considered misrepresenting facts, or done so, we will consider that a very serious mistake."
Subcommittee chair Rep. Brad Wenstrup, DPM (R-Ohio), highlighted some of the conclusions of an interim report published Wednesday on the issue by the subcommittee's majority members. "We have found that EcoHealth was nearly 2 years late in submitting a routine progress report to NIH, that EcoHealth failed to report, as required, a potentially dangerous experiment conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, that EcoHealth used taxpayer dollars to facilitate risky gain-of-function research, and that Dr. Daszak omitted a material fact regarding his access to unanalyzed virus samples and sequences at the WIV in his successful effort to have his grant reinstated by NIH," he said in his opening statement.
In addition, he said, "Dr. Daszak has been less than cooperative with the Select Subcommittee, he has been slow to produce requested documents, and has regularly played semantics with the definition of gain-of-function research, even in his previous testimony." Generally, "gain-of-function" refers to research involving a genetic mutation in an organism -- such as a virus -- that confers a new or enhanced ability upon it.
Gain-of-function research was the focus of questions from Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) "EcoHealth Alliance never has, and did not do, gain-of-function research, by definition," Daszak said in response to her question.
"Are you aware of the Wuhan lab conducting that type of research?" Malliotakis said. "No," Daszak replied. When she asked him why his organization decided to work with the Wuhan lab, he replied, "If you want to work with a foreign country to find the next potential risk of a pandemic, you have to work with labs in those countries. We looked at labs across China; the [Wuhan lab] is the premier viral research [lab] in China" and has a "very good biosafety level." He estimated that in total, his organization has received about $60-$64 million in government funding since the start of the pandemic.
Several subcommittee members tried to focus on the future. "It's critical we understand what went wrong at NIAID and EcoHealth's relationship with Wuhan," said Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.). "My hope is that when we're finished we have a package of legislative proposals and other recommendations on biosafety and biosecurity. I increasingly think that means taking final approval authority for these experiments away from NIAID ... in favor of an independent entity."
"In my opinion [NIAID and EcoHealth] were grossly negligent," Griffith said, adding that NIAID continues to fund EcoHealth's research "to this very day. Even after COVID-19, at NIAID, it's business as usual. It's absurd and it's got to change."
Dingell had a different take. She urged her colleagues to focus on how to protect Americans from future pandemics. "Sowing distrust in the scientific community is not the best way to accomplish this goal," Dingell said. "While I agree that the EcoHealth Alliance proved to be careless and imprecise with federal funding ... this does not mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater. NIH and NIAID serve important functions in medical and scientific research ... They've done good work in the past and we want that good work to continue in the future."
"Throughout this investigation, my Republican colleagues have been trying to cast blame for the COVID-19 pandemic on [former NIH director Francis] Collins and [former NIAID director Anthony] Fauci ... contrary to the evidence," she added. "We should be holding today's witness accountable ... but this should not distract us from our ultimate goal: future pandemic preparedness."
Joyce Frieden oversees MedPage Todays Washington coverage, including stories about Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, healthcare trade associations, and federal agencies. She has 35 years of experience covering health policy. Follow
In a recent study published in Scientific Reports, a group of researchers examined how prior coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection, through behavioral immunity markers, impacts socioemotional functioning using data from 734 Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers.
Study:The psychological costs of behavioral immunity following COVID-19 diagnosis. Image Credit:Joaquin Corbalan P/Shutterstock.com
COVID-19 infection can lead to long-lasting adverse effects on mental health and well-being, intensifying the negative impacts of pandemic-related social and emotional disruptions.
This raises the question of whether COVID-19 also prompts adaptive behavioral immunity, a psychological mechanism that heightens avoidance behaviors to protect against future infections.
This system may increase disgust responses to infection cues and overgeneralize them to neutral stimuli, thus potentially disrupting socioemotional functions.
Further research is needed to validate and deepen the understanding of the complex relationship between adaptive behavioral immunity and socioemotional disruption, informing targeted interventions for post-infection mental health challenges.
The present study involved adult participants who were workers on Amazon MTurk, all of whom were at least 18 years old, fluent in English, and residents of the United States with no history of mental illness. After an initial screening using an online questionnaire, 912 participants were enrolled.
Several participants were excluded for failing attention checks, exhibiting low variance in image ratings suggestive of non-genuine responses, and discrepancies in survey responses.
Ultimately, 734 participants completed the study, providing demographic information and completing all study procedures, which the Institutional Review Board at Penn State University approved.
The study was conducted entirely online during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of the Omicron variant, utilizing the personal electronic devices of the participants.
The procedure included a screening survey, demographic and health history surveys, and a specialized effective image rating task to elicit emotional responses to various images.
This task involved images intended to evoke neutral, infection threat, and bodily harm responses, which were rated on disgust and fear, as well as the perceived risk of sickness and harm. These images were sourced from professional stock photography services and standardized in size and resolution.
Participants progressed through the study by completing an online consent form, demographic and health surveys, and the central image rating task, which included trials where each image was assessed on several emotional response scales.
Data from the image ratings and self-reported measures of pandemic disruption were analyzed to explore the relationships between prior infection, emotional responses to images, and perceived socioemotional disruptions during the pandemic.
Participants in the study began by reporting their history of COVID-19 diagnosis and their level of disruption during the pandemic through online questionnaires.
Participants then engaged in the affective image rating task, where they responded to 90 images divided evenly into three categories: threat of infection, threat of harm, and neutral.
The images were evaluated based on behavioral immunity and harm avoidance markers through four likert scale statements.
Multilevel models assessed the effectiveness of these image types in obtaining responses corresponding to the two psychological systems, with significant differences observed in reactions to threat versus neutral images, particularly highlighting the distinct activation of the behavioral immune system by infection cues over harm cues.
The study's first hypothesis tested whether behavioral immunity mediated the relationship between prior COVID diagnosis and greater pandemic disruption.
This mediation was analyzed using the product of coefficients approach, where the paths from COVID diagnosis to image ratings and from image ratings to pandemic disruption were calculated and tested through bootstrapping.
The results showed that except for the disgust ratings to infection images, all other ratings significantly mediated the association, with previously diagnosed individuals reporting higher levels of disgust and sickness appraisals across all image types, which in turn correlated with greater pandemic disruption.
The second hypothesis focused on the comparative strength of mediation by behavioral immunity responses to neutral versus infection images. It was hypothesized that responses to neutral images would more strongly mediate the link between prior diagnosis and disruption.
Bootstrapping the differences in the indirect effects confirmed this for disgust responses, though not for sickness appraisals, suggesting that behavioral immunity activation to neutral images plays a more significant role in mediating pandemic disruption.
Lastly, the third hypothesis explored whether prototypical harm avoidance markers, like fear and harm appraisals, also mediated the relationship between COVID-19 diagnosis and pandemic disruption.
The analysis showed that fear responses to all image types and harm appraisals to neutral and infection images significantly mediated this relationship, except for harm appraisals to harm images.
This indicates a broader activation of threat responses following a COVID diagnosis, implicating both behavioral immunity and harm avoidance systems in the psychological impacts of the pandemic.
Before Wednesdays hearing, the House panel released a report claiming EcoHealth Alliance funded dangerous research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology using US government grants without sufficient oversight.
Amid high tensions between Washington and Beijing, the Wuhan institute has felt the glare of scrutiny in recent years, with some US politicians and intelligence agencies claiming the pandemic resulted from the coronavirus escaping from its laboratory.
Chinese officials have repeatedly and vehemently denied the allegation.
Having received funding worth millions of US dollars from the American government-backed National Institutes of Health since 2014, EcoHealth Alliance worked with the Wuhan institute for years before the outbreak.
The collaboration included research on understanding the risk of a novel bat virus spilling into humans in China. That research has come under the spotlight.
More Americans view China as an enemy, new Pew survey shows
Daszak in his testimony stated there was incredibly substantial evidence that this virus emerged through so-called natural zoonotic origins namely, the spread of germs between animals and people.
To date, there remains no direct verifiable or scientific evidence that Covid-19 originated in a lab, the scientist added.
If we are serious about preventing pandemics, we will have no choice but to work collaboratively with governments in those places where they will most likely begin, he said.
Supporting global health research, rather than trying to shut it down, will guarantee the best outcomes for the American people.
This was the case, Daszak continued, because it allows us rapid access to information at the earliest stages of a pandemic so we can act quickly and prevent what begins over there from affecting us here at home.
But some US lawmakers, especially Republicans, urged on Wednesday that Daszak and his research group be barred from receiving any federal funds and face criminal investigation.
Brad Wenstrup, an Ohio Republican and the select subcommittees chairman, asserted that Daszaks research puts the world at the risk of a pandemic and is a threat to national security.
But the problem is youre in a country that is not trustable and not accountable and not cooperative with the [World Health Organization]. In this case, we have a problem. Thats not where you should be.
Chinas zero-Covid rules are history. So why is Beijing hanging on to the past?
Meanwhile, Democrats on the panel questioned weaknesses in how EcoHealth used its funding, while saying the US should not throw out the baby with the bathwater in terms of future scientific research collaboration with non-US entities.
At present, no evidence has yet substantiated allegations that EcoHealth Alliance used US taxpayer dollars to fund work involved in the creation of the pandemic, said Raul Ruiz, a California Democrat and the subcommittees ranking member.
Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, said the US must focus our attention on the future and how we can best protect all Americans from and against future pandemics.
Sowing distrust in the scientific and medical communities is not a way to accomplish this goal, Dingell added.
BEIJING The first scientist to publish a sequence of the COVID-19 virus in China said he was allowed back into his lab after he spent days locked outside, sitting in protest.
Zhang Yongzhen wrote in an online post on Wednesday, just past midnight, that the medical center that hosts his lab had tentatively agreed to allow him and his team to return and continue their research for the time being.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has lifted the requirement for hospitals to report COVID-19 hospitalization data to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Effective May 1, the CDC says reporting by hospitals of COVID-19 hospital admissions, hospital capacity or hospital occupancy data is no longer a mandate.
The CDC does however still strongly recommend voluntary reporting of the data.
Any data voluntarily reported after the May 1 date will become available on May 10.
This comes as COVID hospitalizations hit a record low.
Weekly COVID hospitalizations dropped to an all-time low of 5,615 hospitalizations for the week of April 20, according to the CDC.
Comparatively, hospitalizations for coronavirus peaked during the week of Jan. 15, 2022, with 150,650 hospitalizations, CDC data shows. This came amid a surge of infections from the omicron variant.
Federal officials have been collecting COVID-19 data from hospitals since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Science and Tech
6:31 PM, Mar 15, 2024
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In 2023, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in its report that TTS emerged as a new adverse event following immunisation in individuals vaccinated with COVID-19 non-replicant adenovirus vector-based vaccines. This refers to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 ChAdOx-1 vaccine and the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Janssen COVID-19 Ad26.COV2-S vaccines.
Angle down icon An icon in the shape of an angle pointing down. Yang Xiaoming speaks during 2020 Zhongguancun (ZGC) Forum on September 18, 2020 in Beijing, China. Hou Yu/China News Service via Getty Images
The chief researcher of China's first general-use COVID vaccine was ousted last week from the country's highest organ of power.
Yang Xiaoming, 62, was booted on April 23 from the National People's Congress "due to serious discipline and law violations," state media reported this weekend.
The phrase typically means a person is under investigation for corruption in China.
That means Yang, the chairman of Sinopharm's vaccine subsidiary China National Biotec Group, is no longer one of the nearly 3,000 congressional deputies who make decisions on major national issues.
A congressional report on his dismissal said he served on the Ethnic Affairs Committee.
Yang is a medical researcher who led the Sinopharm team that developed the BBIBP-CorV vaccine, a COVID-19 shot that was the nation's first approved for general use.
Known colloquially as the Sinopharm vaccine, the shot was one of the most widely administered COVID-19 shots in China, with an efficacy of 79% against hospitalization.
Apart from developing the Sinopharm shot, Yang was also the head of China's vaccine project under the 863 program, or Beijing's push to make the country more independent by developing homegrown advanced technologies.
Yang's dismissal has gone viral on Weibo, China's version of X, with thousands of posts questioning the circumstances behind his removal from deputy status. It received around 180 million views and, for several hours, was the platform's hottest topic on Sunday.
The discussion soon morphed into wild speculation that the reason behind his dismissal may have been related to the Sinopharm vaccine, though there has been no evidence to indicate as such.
"The father of the Sinopharm vaccine violated regulations and laws, but it doesn't mean there are problems with the vaccines he developed and produced," wrote "Dr Chen," a popular medical blogger. "Let's wait before panicking."
The announcement about Yang comes amid China's sweeping crackdown on corruption in its healthcare sector, with investigations launched against hundreds of hospital deans and secretaries.
It's been the heaviest disciplinary campaign ever enforced on China's healthcare industry, plagued for years by thousands of commercial bribery cases between pharmaceutical suppliers and healthcare providers.
In August, the anti-corruption campaign caused pharmaceutical A-share stocks in China to fall so sharply that it wiped out an estimated $27 billion market value within one day.
