As I have noted in previous posts, the conventional explanation in virology circles is that the new variant of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 Clade 2.3.4.4b was purportedly carried by migratory birds across the North Atlantic in 2021, and arrived in North America in the autumn of 2021.
In a July 11, 2022 paper in Nature titled ‘
CONCLUSION
There remains a paucity of evidence to support the hypothesis that Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 Clade 2.3.4.4b was borne across the North Atlantic by migratory birds in 2021.
The new clade was first detected in the Netherlands in October 2020, not far from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, where the prominent virologist Ron Fouchier—who happens to be a co-author of the “Transatlantic Spread” paper—is known to have conducted dangerous Gain-of-Function experiments on H5N1 bird flu in recent years.
This same clade was subsequently detected in ducks in Colleton County, South Carolina—200 miles east of Athens, Georgia—location of the USDA’s Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory (SEPRL), which began performing serial passage experiments with H5Nx viruses on mallard ducks in the spring of 2021.
It’s notable that the Erasmus Medical Center, headed by Ron Fouchier, previously collaborated closely with the SEPRL to develop vaccines against H9 avian influenza viruses, indicating the two laboratories likely share virus samples. This raises the suspicion that the Erasmus lab shared a sample of the new clade with the USDA poultry lab in Athens sometime in 2021, and that it somehow got out of the lab and spread to waterfowl on the Atlantic flyway.