Skip to main content

SARS-CoV-2 – designed in UNC, given wings in Montana, leaked in Wuhan

By Bhaskaran Raman  

Five years ago, around this time of year, the world had come to a halt under lockdowns—apparently to contain a novel and dangerous virus. However, the virus was not dangerous to most of the population, as it was not designed to be lethal. Who designed it, and why? 
None of the containment measures worked, as the virus was engineered to spread via airborne aerosols. Who taught it to do so, and why? Understanding the origins of the so-called pandemic—which led to some of the gravest rights violations in human history outside of wartime—is crucial.
From early 2020 onward, any mention of the lab-leak possibility was dismissed as a conspiracy theory. However, it turns out that it was not a conspiracy theory, but rather a conspiracy practice.
In December 2024, a U.S. House of Representatives committee report supported the lab-leak hypothesis. The official narrative claims that the U.S. funded dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that there was an accidental leak in Wuhan. But this, according to the book, is not even one percent of the full story.
In June 2025, the WHO released a report suggesting that SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, likely originated naturally, spilling over from bats. However, thousands of tests on 218 Chinese species failed to detect SARS-CoV-2 in any of them—a major shortcoming in the natural-origin hypothesis.
Jim Haslam’s book, “Covid-19: Mystery Solved”, claims to connect the dots. The book’s subtitle summarizes it in one line: “It leaked from a Wuhan lab but it’s not Chinese junk.” The book draws on leaked documents, U.S. FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) disclosures, congressional hearings, and numerous scientific research papers.
The story begins in 2004, when President George W. Bush signed “Project Bioshield,” a $6 billion bio-bureaucracy led by Anthony Fauci. Following 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, Fauci became fixated on preventing future spillovers of dangerous viruses from bats to humans.
Simultaneously, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) worried about potential spillovers affecting its troops in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2018, a proposal titled DEFUSE was submitted to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) by Professor Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina (UNC). The proposal aimed to prevent spillovers by “vaccinating” bats using modified viruses to trigger antibodies. DARPA rejected the proposal, which only came to light when Major Joseph Murphy leaked it in 2021.
To this end, Baric created the SARS-CoV-2 virus in his UNC lab. According to the book, “Baric admitted in 2024 testimony that manipulating the protease (furin) was his idea,” using the term chimera twenty times. A chimera combines two or more viruses—in this case, from Asian bats. The goal, the book claims, was not malevolent: SARS-CoV-2 was intended as a bat vaccine.
However, vaccinating bats was expensive. Baric initially proposed spraying bat cave entrances, but the costs were prohibitive—one reason DARPA declined funding.
The story then moves to a second U.S. lab—the Rocky Mountain Lab in Montana—where Vincent Munster (chief of the Virus Ecology Unit) and Peter Daszak (president of EcoHealth Alliance) were researching “self-spreading vaccines.” They developed methods to train viruses to spread via airborne aerosols by selectively propagating mutations that enhanced transmissibility.
Baric’s UNC team collaborated with Munster’s Montana lab to make the virus “self-spreading.” Though DARPA had rejected DEFUSE in May 2018, Fauci’s NIAID later funded a similar project in October 2018 under the CREID (Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases) program. Thus, the virus created in UNC was “taught to fly” in Montana.
This may explain why SARS-CoV-2 efficiently transmits in several U.S. species—American mink, white-tailed deer, deer mice, Egyptian fruit bats, and Syrian hamsters—all used in Montana experiments—while not found in Chinese wildlife.
The next stage involved testing in Wuhan. Researcher Danielle Anderson, funded by Fauci, worked in the Wuhan BSL-4 lab to test airborne spread among Chinese horseshoe bats. Early prototypes failed; the final one succeeded—tragically, as the book suggests. The supposed “kill-switch” that was meant to prevent human transmission worked in Montana monkeys but failed in humans.
Haslam observes: “Every congressional question (to Fauci) about schools, lockdowns, social distancing, masks, beagles, and mandates could have been answered with one question: What was your $82 million CREID contractor (Danielle) doing inside that Wuhan BSL-4?” On 24 January 2024, Baric twice evaded congressional questions about what was in his UNC freezer—possibly, the author suggests, because the answer was incriminating.
According to Major Joseph Murphy: “SARS-CoV-WIV is not meant to kill the bats but to immunize them. This nature may explain its general harmlessness to most people and its harmfulness to the old and co-morbid, who are generally more susceptible to vaccine reactions.” He also noted, “The [injectable] vaccine recipient has no defense against bloodstream entry, but their nose protects them from the recombinant spike protein quasi-species during ‘natural infection’ (better termed aerosolized inoculation).”
There was no ill intent in creating or aerosolizing the virus, the book claims; the real crime was the cover-up. While Fauci funded research to make SARS-CoV-2 airborne, he allegedly misled the public about surface transmission, six-foot distancing, school closures, lockdowns, and later, about the safety and efficacy of injectable COVID-19 vaccines.
To reiterate, according to the author, the COVID-19 origin and response were not a “conspiracy theory,” but a “conspiracy practice.” The virus was the (bat) vaccine; the [injectable] vaccine was more dangerous than the virus itself.
---
Bhaskaran Raman is a Professor at IIT Bombay. Views are personal. He has authored “Math Murder in Media Manufactured Madness,” which uses simple math to illustrate the absurdities in the mainstream COVID-19 narrative, available  here

Comments

TRENDING

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Four women lead the way among Tamil Nadu’s Muslim change-makers

By Syed Ali Mujtaba*  A report published by Awaz–The Voice (ATV), a news platform, highlights 10 Muslim change-makers in Tamil Nadu, among whom four are women. These individuals are driving social change through education, the arts, conservation, and activism. Representing diverse fields ranging from environmental protection and literature to political engagement and education, they are working to improve society across the state.

From water scarcity to sustainable livelihoods: The turnaround of Salaiya Maaf

By Bharat Dogra   We were sitting at a central place in Salaiya Maaf village, located in Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh, for a group discussion when an elderly woman said in an emotional voice, “It is so good that you people came. Land on which nothing grew can now produce good crops.”

When free trade meets unequal fields: The India–US agriculture question

By Vikas Meshram   The proposed trade agreement between India and the United States has triggered intense debate across the country. This agreement is not merely an attempt to expand bilateral trade; it is directly linked to Indian agriculture, the rural economy, democratic processes, and global geopolitics. Free trade agreements (FTAs) may appear attractive on the surface, but the political economy and social consequences behind them are often unequal and controversial. Once again, a fundamental question has surfaced: who will benefit from this agreement, and who will pay its price?

Why Russian oil has emerged as the flashpoint in India–US trade talks

By N.S. Venkataraman*  In recent years, India has entered into trade agreements with several countries, the latest being agreements with the European Union and the United States. While the India–EU trade agreement has been widely viewed in India as mutually beneficial and balanced, the trade agreement with the United States has generated comparatively greater debate and scrutiny.

Trade pacts with EU, US raise alarms over farmers, MSMEs and policy space

By A Representative   A broad coalition of farmers’ organisations, trade unions, traders, public health advocates and environmental groups has raised serious concerns over India’s recently concluded trade agreements with the European Union and the United States, warning that the deals could have far-reaching implications for livelihoods, policy autonomy and the country’s long-term development trajectory. In a public statement issued, the Forum for Trade Justice described the two agreements as marking a “tectonic shift” in India’s trade policy and cautioned that the projected gains in exports may come at a significant social and economic cost.

Samyukt Kisan Morcha raises concerns over ‘corporate bias’ in seed Bill

By A Representative   The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) has released a statement raising ten questions to Union Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan regarding the proposed Seed Bill 2025, alleging that the legislation is biased in favour of large multinational and domestic seed corporations and does not adequately safeguard farmers’ interests. 

Conversations from the margins: Caste, land and social justice in South Asia

By Prof K S Chalam*  Vidya Bhushan Rawat ’s three-volume body of conversational works constitutes an ambitious and largely unprecedented intellectual intervention into the study of marginalisation in South Asia . Drawing upon the method of extended dialogue, Rawat documents voices from across caste, region, ideology, and national boundaries to construct a living archive of dissent, memory, and struggle. 

Bangladesh goes to polls as press freedom concerns surface

By Nava Thakuria*  As Bangladesh heads for its 13th Parliamentary election and a referendum on the July National Charter simultaneously on Thursday (12 February 2026), interim government chief Professor Muhammad Yunus has urged all participating candidates to rise above personal and party interests and prioritize the greater interests of the Muslim-majority nation, regardless of the poll outcomes.