The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday that the U.S. has information that the Chinese Virus Research Institute personnel showed symptoms of infection with the new coronavirus as early as the fall of 2019, and that the U.S. is accusing Beijing of systematically preventing the outside world from conducting a transparent and thorough investigation of the source of the virus for a year as the WHO international mission arrives in China to investigate the source of the virus, instead releasing false information to deceive the world.
In his announcement, Pompeo said, “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research had developed symptoms in the fall of 2019 long before the first confirmed patient appeared, and that the researchers’ symptoms were consistent with the 2019 novel coronavirus and a general seasonal epidemic.” Pompeo questioned Wuhan Institute of Virus researcher Shi Zhengli’s claim that the lab had “zero infections. He also criticized the Chinese Communist Party for preventing independent journalists, investigators and global health workers from entering the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research during the early stages of the winter 2019 outbreak in China.
The State Department statement also said that the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research studied bat virus strain RaTG13 back in 2016, which is 96.2 percent similar to the new coronavirus identified by the institute in January 2020, and that WHO investigators must obtain records of the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research’s work on bats and other types of coronaviruses prior to this outbreak to confirm the source.
Pompeo also said the Wuhan Institute of Virus claimed to be a civilian institution, but the U.S. confirmed that the institute had secret cooperation with the Chinese military, Zhi said as early as 2017, the institute has been involved in classified research, including animal experiments on behalf of the PLA side.
The statement said that the information obtained by the United States pointed to the disease originated in China, requiring international representatives to conduct a credible investigation to identify the Wuhan Institute of Virus equipment, personnel, samples and various records to the WHO team that just arrived in Wuhan, should “obtain new information to pressure the Chinese government”.
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