In a recent media interview, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said that all evidence now points to the origin of the coronavirus outbreak in China, and on January 15, the State Department issued a fact check on the actions of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, focusing on Three actions of the Institute related to the origin of the virus that require further review and warrant further investigation.
The following is the text of the State Department’s fact check.
For more than a year, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has systematically prevented a transparent and thorough investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 (deadly Communist virus) pandemic and has chosen to devote significant resources to deception and disinformation. Two million people have died worldwide, and their families deserve to know the truth. Only by being transparent can we understand what caused this pandemic and how to prevent the next one.
The U.S. government does not know exactly when, where or how the COVID-19 virus (known as SARS-CoV-2) was originally transmitted to humans. We have not yet determined whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or whether it resulted from an accident (spill) in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
The virus may have arisen naturally from human contact with infected animals and spread in a manner consistent with a natural epidemic. Alternatively, if only a few people were initially infected with the virus and the infection was asymptomatic, a laboratory accident could have caused a natural-like (epidemic) outbreak. Chinese scientists have studied animal-derived coronaviruses, an environment that increases the risk of accidental and potentially uninformed exposure.
The CCP is obsessed with secrecy and control at the expense of public health in China and around the world. The following fact check highlights three elements regarding the origin of COVID-19 that merit further review based on previously unpublished information and open source reports.
- Wuhan Institute for Virus Research (WIV) insider disease
The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers within WIV became ill in the fall of 2019, prior to the first confirmed cases of the CCP virus, and that these researchers had symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and common seasonal disease. This raises questions about the credibility of Shi Zhengli, a senior researcher at WIV, who has publicly declared “zero infections” of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-associated viruses among WIV staff and students.
Accidental infections in the laboratory have led to several previous outbreaks in China and elsewhere, including the 2004 SARS outbreak in Beijing, which infected nine people and killed one.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has prevented independent journalists, investigators, and global health agencies from interviewing WIV researchers, including those who became ill in the fall of 2019. Any credible investigation into the origin of the (CCP) virus must include interviews with these researchers and complete verification of their previously unreported illnesses.
- Research at the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research
Since at least 2016, Wuhan Institute of Virus researchers have conducted experiments involving RaTG13 and showed no signs of stopping before the COVID-19 outbreak; RaTG13 is the bat coronavirus identified by WIV in January 2020 as the closest to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2% similar). After the SARS outbreak in 2003, WIV became the focus of international coronavirus research and has since been studied in animals including mice, bats, and pangolins.
WIV has a public record of conducting “gene function acquisition” studies to engineer chimeric viruses. But WIV’s record of research on the viruses most similar to COVID-19 (including “RaTG13”), which was sampled from a cave in Yunnan province in 2013 after several miners died of SARS-like illness, is not transparent or consistent.
WHO investigators had to obtain records of WIV’s work with bats and other coronaviruses before the COVID-19 outbreak. As part of a comprehensive inquiry, they must fully understand why WIV changed, and subsequently deleted, online records related to RaTG13 and other viruses.
- Covert Military Activities at the Wuhan Virus Institute
Secrecy and control are standard practice in Beijing. For years, the United States has been openly concerned about China’s (CCP’s) past biological weapons efforts, which Beijing has neither documented nor explicitly stated its intention to eliminate, despite its clear BWC obligations.
Despite the WIV’s appearance of resembling a civilian agency, the United States has determined that the WIV collaborates with the Chinese (CCP) military on publications and covert programs. Since 2017, WIV has been conducting classified research on behalf of the Chinese (CCP) military, including animal testing in laboratories.
U.S. and other donors who fund WIV, or collaborate with the Institute on civilian research, have the right and obligation to determine whether any U.S. research funds are diverted to WIV’s secret Chinese (Communist Party of China) military projects.
Today’s revelation only lifts the veil on the Chinese origins of COVID-19. Any credible investigation into the origins of COVID-19 would require complete and transparent access to the Wuhan Virus Laboratory, including its facilities, samples, personnel, and (relevant) records.
As the world continues to struggle with this epidemic and, after a delay of more than a year, WHO researchers begin work, the source of the virus remains uncertain. The United States will continue to do all it can to support a credible and thorough investigation, including continuing to demand transparency from the Chinese (Communist) authorities.
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