Chinese lab mapped Covid-19 virus before Beijing shared information two deadly weeks later

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Coronavirus

Recently obtained documents from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have validated serious questions and concerns about China’s transparency in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The documents, revealed by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, suggest that a Chinese researcher in Beijing uploaded a nearly complete sequence of the COVID virus structure to a U.S. database run by the National Institute of Health (NIH) on December 28, 2019 – two weeks before Beijing shared the viral sequence with the rest of the world.

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The timeline, as reported by the Wall Street Journal and National Review, indicates that when Beijing eventually shared the SARS-CoV-2 sequence with the World Health Organization on January 11, 2020, a crucial two-week period had already elapsed since the virus was sequenced by a researcher at the Institute of Pathogen Biology in Beijing. This institute is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and People’s Liberation Army.

During these two weeks, the international health community was racing to understand and respond to the emerging viral threat. Chinese officials, however, continued to describe the disease outbreak in Wuhan as a viral pneumonia “of unknown cause” to the public.

The researcher responsible for uploading the sequence, Dr. Lili Ren, contracted as a collaborator on a U.S.-funded project studying coronavirus transmission from animals to humans, did not respond to inquiries. Ren’s involvement in a project overseen by the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, along with her connection to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), raises further concerns.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, emphasized that the discoveries question the legitimacy of any scientific theories based on information provided by the Chinese government. The committee, which has been investigating the origins of COVID-19 and U.S. government funding of overseas research, continues to highlight the importance of caution regarding the accuracy of information released by the Chinese government. Virologist Jesse Bloom warns that the revelations underscore the need for caution, emphasizing the limited knowledge about the information released by China.

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