U.S. officials have “reason to believe” that Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology caught the novel coronavirus months before it developed into a pandemic, according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“The United States government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses,” Pompeo said in Friday evening announcement. “This raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli’s public claim that there was ‘zero infection’ among the WIV’s staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses.”
World Health Organization investigators arrived in China on Thursday, but they remain in quarantine. Pompeo’s statement amplifies U.S. suspicions that the contagion leaked out of a lab, a finding that would tend to reinforce the perception that the Chinese Communist government is to blame for the public health calamity.
“Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military,” Pompeo added. "The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.”
In May, Pompeo declared that U.S. officials possessed “enormous evidence” that the pandemic originated in a Chinese laboratory, although he acknowledged this week that “we don’t know for sure” that it did. Chinese officials suggested in the early months of the pandemic that the virus emerged from a “wet market” where wild animal meat was sold, but Beijing’s envoys have also launched disinformation operations to blame the U.S. military or suggest that it began in another country.
The allocation of blame for the pandemic has driven major international controversies over the last year — a war of words between Chinese and American diplomats paralleled by Beijing’s use of economic restrictions to punish Australia’s call for an investigation. The pandemic triggered an ideological showdown between Washington and Beijing, as Pompeo pointed to Chinese Communist censorship of early warnings to undercut the regime’s influence, while Chinese officials have cited their handling of the pandemic to tout their system of governance.
“Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the Chinese side has maintained close communication and cooperation with WHO on global origin-tracing in an open, transparent and responsible manner,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said this week. “China will continue close cooperation with WHO and international experts and contribute our share to the global origin-tracing work.”
Pompeo has rebuked China over the last year for failing to provide the early “virus samples” that researchers prize. Chinese officials acknowledged “destroying the samples” in May, a move justified as a way “to temporarily manage the pathogen.” State Department officials made a point to emphasize that they are suggesting that the pandemic may have resulted from “an accident at a laboratory,” as opposed to any intentional malign behavior.
“The virus could have emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, spreading in a pattern consistent with a natural epidemic,” a State Department fact sheet released alongside Pompeo’s statement observed. "Alternatively, a laboratory accident could resemble a natural outbreak if the initial exposure included only a few individuals and was compounded by asymptomatic infection. Scientists in China have researched animal-derived coronaviruses under conditions that increased the risk for accidental and potentially unwitting exposure.”
Chinese researchers have been studying a bat coronavirus that is “96.2% similar” to the virus that caused COVID-19, the State Department noted. “Since the outbreak, the WIV has not been transparent nor consistent about its work with RaTG13 or other similar viruses, including possible ‘gain of function’ experiments to enhance transmissibility or lethality,” Pompeo said.
World Health Organization investigators have maintained a collegial public posture toward China, in their attempt to gain access to the country and begin the long-awaited probe. "I don't think we should be pointing fingers here,” professor Marion Koopmans, a member of the team sent by the WHO, told Chinese state-run media recently.
President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in July, citing outrage over the WHO’s amplification of false information provided by Beijing. Pompeo, who has predicted a “completely whitewashed investigation,” put pressure on the just-arrived investigators.
“The United States reiterates the importance of unfettered access to virus samples, lab records and personnel, eyewitnesses, and whistleblowers to ensure the credibility of the WHO’s final report,” he said. "Until the CCP allows a full and thorough accounting of what happened in Wuhan, it is only a matter of time until China births another pandemic and inflicts it on the Chinese people, and the world.”
