Italian Embassy in Beijing Refutes CCP’s Fake News That COVID-19 First Appeared in Italy

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi looks on at the Quirinal palace after a meeting with the Italian president, in Rome, on Feb. 3, 2021. Alessandra Tarantino/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

While the world is focusing on the possibility of the CCP virus leaking from a Wuhan lab that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, major Chinese online news portals have simultaneously reposted a piece of news, saying that the Italian Prime Minister had admitted that the outbreak appeared in Italy earlier than in China. The Italian embassy to Beijing quickly denied it, calling it a lie.

On June 7, major Chinese news portals including 163.com, Tencent’s qq.com, and the Chinese communist regime’s chief military website xilu.com were all posting the same news claiming that Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi admitted for the first time in a video interview at the Prime Minister’s Office on that day that as early as the summer of 2019, the COVID-19 epidemic began to spread in northern Italy including Milan.

The news also emphasized, “In terms of time, this may be a full half a year earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic appeared in Wuhan, China.”

The news spread quickly on Chinese websites and social media by a large number of online commentators, social media influencers, and media professionals. “Fifty-cent” gangs [paid pro-Chinese regime online commentators] and little pinks [pro-communist Chinese] commented under the news saying that Western society accusing the Chinese regime of covering up the epidemic is “a thief calling others thieves.”

However, the Chinese news portals didn’t provide sources for their reports.

On the afternoon of June 7, the Italian Embassy in China refuted the fake news on its official account on the Chinese social media website Weibo: “Today, some articles appeared on certain social media that incorrectly and groundlessly attributed remarks about the source of the COVID-19 pandemic to the Prime Minister of the Italian Republic, Mario Draghi. The Italian Embassy firmly emphasizes that the content about the Prime Minister’s remarks in the article is completely a lie, and the news has no basis whatsoever.”

After the announcement by the Italian Embassy, some social media accounts that had reposted the fake news started to delete them.

Some Chinese netizens commented, “The authorities said that the internet is not a place outside the law, it means that rumors about our government departments and heroes and martyrs cannot be made; but it is not applicable to making rumors about foreign governments.”

The fake news on Chinese websites about the source of the pandemic appeared at a time when the United States and the international community continue to call for the source of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus to be investigated, while at the same time additional information and reports continue to be made available that underscore the potential that the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, China was the source, whether by accident or intention.

Workers place barriers outside the closed Huanan Seafood wholesale market during a visit by members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team, investigating the origins of the COVID-19 disease, in Wuhan, China's central Hubei province on Jan. 31, 2021. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images

On June 6, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the U.S. government is determined to get to the bottom of the origin of the COVID-19 virus and narrowed it down to two scenarios—animal to human and lab leak. Under both scenarios, the disease originated in China. The COVID-19 pandemic first broke out in China’s Wuhan city in late 2019, and China publicly acknowledged the outbreak in January 2020.

In 2019, then Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte signed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) agreement with China, a global strategy of the Chinese communist regime to expand its political and economic influence by offering infrastructure development loans to other countries. Italy is the first European country to sign the BRI.

Last year, Italy was hit hard by the COVID-19 epidemic. This year, the new Italian government led by Draghi is taking a tougher stance on the Chinese regime.