COVID origins: Wuhan lab told airport of ‘drill’ for coronavirus outbreak in 2019

A new report on the origins of the COVID pandemic reveals what the authors said is evidence of a Chinese government cover-up. The report from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and his office detailed the events that led up to the outbreak. 

Timeline

The report laid out a timeline that casts doubt on the idea that the virus originated in the Wuhan wet market. 

• Sept. 12, 2019: The Wuhan Institute of Virology unexpectedly shut down its online virus database in the middle of the night. 

• Sept. 18, 2019: The institute advised the Wuhan Airport of a drill for the outbreak of a “novel coronavirus.” 

• Sept. 21, 2019: A Wuhan resident died from what a Chinese biostatistician believes may have been COVID-19.

• Oct. 2019: The Chinese legislature reviewed a draft biosecurity law that stated “laboratories that leak biological agents” are one of several threats.  

“We started to find writings, we started to find statements, we started to find evidence of internal conversations that were being posted in different journals and the like. And we really began to see an uptick in the summer of the year 2019. So seven, eight months before COVID reached our shores, we already start to see evidence that something is happening,” Rubio said.  

The origins

The report stated that Chinese scientists determined in January 2020 that the Wuhan wet market was likely not the origin of the COVID outbreak. The wet market origins story remains the official Chinese government position and it has prevented doctors and scientists from fully investigating other theories. 

Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been experimenting with coronaviruses since 2004. They had been using gain of function research to take naturally occurring viruses from animals and engineering them to become contagious in humans. They do that to predict where the next outbreak will come from and make a cure before it happens, but it needs to be done under the strictest safety guidelines. 

“They were doing things that no other labs in the world would dare do because of how dangerous, how risky and how unsafe they are. But in China they were doing it,” Rubio said.  

Rubio said the Chinese government purposefully hid the truth from the world and the Chinese Communist Party needs to be held accountable. 

Xi Jingping knew

According to the report, many high ranking Chinese officials knew about the risks of the research and the lax safety protocols at the Wuhan lab. 

“Currently the biosecurity situation in our country is grim,” one high ranking official wrote. 

Even President Xi Jingping knew of the risks. In 2018, he alerted the party congress to be alert for a “SARS-like virus” that is infecting the population. Despite that, he pushed to simplify examination and project approval procedures to achieve scientific breakthroughs.