The new evidence also adds weight to a conclusion that WIV’s leading researcher, Dr. Shi Zhengli, was lying or evading when she said that SARS-CoV-2 did not leak from her lab.
The former official who led a Pompeo task force into the virus origins, David Asher, alluded to evidence in the report at the Hudson Institute in March. He said that he doubted that the ordinary flu made three researchers sick. “I’m very doubtful that three people in highly protected circumstances in a level three laboratory working on coronaviruses would all get sick with influenza that put them in the hospital or in severe conditions all in the same week, and it didn’t have anything to do with the coronavirus,” he told seminar participants. He said he believes that these hospitalizations of lab researchers could be “the first known cluster” of the COVID-19 disease.
According to the Journal, “Many proponents of the lab hypothesis say that a virus that was carried by an infected bat might have been brought to the lab so that researchers could work on potential vaccines—only to escape.” The timing of the WIV researcher hospitalizations matches analyses of SARS-CoV-2’s rate of mutation. The analyses concluded that the virus likely began spreading sometime in November, several weeks before the first known case on Dec. 8.
Crucially, the Biden administration does not dispute any of the findings in the State Department fact-sheets on the virus’s origins. Even the Chinese authorities have confirmed at least one of former Secretary Pompeo’s claims.
The lack of transparency by Beijing is indeed evidence of a cover-up, suggesting that the virus’s origins are more serious for the regime than their story, plus allegations of deceit, indicate. The earliest months of the outbreak are the most crucial for determining origin. The World Health Organization (WHO) team that visited the WIV revealed that of 76,000 people who were sickened between October and early December 2019, Chinese doctors identified 92 potential COVID-19 cases. But, the regime refused to share raw data on the 76,000. That data is essential for understanding why only 92 were tested for antibodies. Authorities also refused to provide pre-December 2019 samples from a blood bank in Wuhan for antibody testing.
The WHO team concluded, based on sparse evidence that was clearly biased by Chinese government selection effects, that the lab-leak theory was “extremely unlikely.” But they admitted to not having viewed the raw data and original records from the lab, including safety records. They should not have made any conclusions of likelihood without better data.
Even WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus seemed to disagree with the team’s conclusions when he said the team had not adequately examined the data relevant to the lab-leak hypothesis. He rightly called for a fuller probe to investigate the relevant evidence.
Sadly, Dr. Ted is way ahead of the United States and European Union on the matter. Our western governments have demanded better access to samples and data from early sicknesses, including COVID-19 cases, but they have not explicitly demanded a lab probe.
That must change. Increasingly, scientists are taking the lab-leak hypothesis seriously. To test it, we need a full and immediate probe of the lab.
After approximately 590,000 American deaths and counting, and almost 3.5 million worldwide, President Biden and our allies have a clear and most solemn responsibility to demand a full lab probe of the WIV. Continued lack of a probe should be met with the most severe economic sanctions available to the U.S. government and allies against another nation. The families of 3.5 million lost souls deserve as much.
