Coronavirus: Wuhan games athletes ‘took the virus global’

The CCP has been accused of a massive ‘cover up’ over Covid-19’s origins, with a report arguing the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab as early as September 2019.

The P4 laboratory building at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Picture: AFP.

The Chinese Communist Party has been accused of a massive “cover up” over the origins of Covid-19, with a US report arguing the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan as early as September 2019 and was spread globally by infected international athletes.

In a report that “completely dismisses” the idea Sars-Cov2 emerged in a wet market, Republicans on the House foreign ­affairs committee have accused China of removing a database about ­viruses “without explanation” in September 2019 from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where safety standards were “similar to a dentist’s office”.

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“Satellite imagery of Wuhan in September and October 2019 that showed a significant uptick in the number of people at local hospitals surrounding the WIV’s headquarters, coupled with an unusually high number of ­patients with symptoms similar to Covid-19,” the report added.

Texas congressman Michael McCaul, the lead Republican on the House committee, accused the Chinese Communist Party of the “greatest cover up in human history”.

“They were playing with fire … They were genetically ­manipulating at the lab this gain-of-function that was taking place,” he said.

The analysis, which comes weeks before US intelligence services are expected to deliver their own report on the origins of the virus, also found “ample evidence” the Wuhan lab was pursuing controversial “gain of function” research, where viruses are artificially created or ­enhanced, in collaboration with American scientists.

“Researchers at the Wuhan ­Institute, officials within the CCP and potentially American citizens directly engaged in ­efforts to obfuscate information related to the origins of the virus and to suppress public debate of a possible lab leak,” the report says. Beijing has repeatedly ­refused to co-operate with international investigations into the origin of the virus, urged by the Australian and US governments.

This P4 laboratory (C) on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan. Picture; AFP.

The latest salvo against the idea Covid-19, which has killed over 4.1 million people globally, emerged naturally also called for US scientist Peter Daszack, chief executive of NGO Eco-Health Alliance, which received funding from the US government, to testify before congress.

Mr Daszak, who worked closely with the Wuhan Virology Institute for many years, orchestrated a letter published in The Lancet journal in March last year that dismissed the idea Sars-Cov2 could have been leaked as a “conspiracy theory”. The journal later distanced itself from the letter, which failed to disclose the ­authors’ vested interest in the “natural emergence” theory.

The Republican-authored ­report said the “preponderance of evidence” was in favour of the idea that the virus was accidentally released “sometime prior” to September 12, 2019.

“The virus, or the viral ­sequence that was genetically manipulated, was likely collected in a cave in Yunnan province, PRC, between 2012 and 2015,” it added.

The Seventh International Military World Games, to which Australia and New Zealand did not send athletes, drew more than 9000 military personnel from more than 100 nations to Wuhan.

“Athletes at the Military World Games held in Wuhan in October 2019 became sick with symptoms similar to Covid-19 both while in Wuhan and also shortly after returning to their home countries,” the report said.

Athletes said the city appeared to be in “lockdown” during the games. Italy, France, Brazil, and Sweden, which all sent athletes, have since confirmed Covid-19 cases within their borders in late 2019.”

In May President Joe Biden asked the US intelligence services to prepare a report in 90 days on the origins of Covid-19, “including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident”.

The request came after scientists started to publicly question the 2020 consensus that the virus had emerged naturally, and criticised the WHO’s own investigation, published in March 2021, which concluded a lab leak was “extremely unlikely”.