The resurgence of a theory that the Chinese coronavirus first began infecting people through an accident at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has rekindled outrage towards Beijing but presents the danger of obscuring the many actions China took to spread the disease regardless of where it originated.
A poll by the Trafalgar Group published this week revealed that most Americans believe the virus leaked from the laboratory, known to have been studying bat coronaviruses at the time of the onset of the outbreak. Concrete proof of the theory would likely lead to calls for China to lose its sovereign immunity in America, allowing Americans to sue the Communist Party for the damage done. House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told Breitbart News in an interview this week that Congress is, indeed, considering legislation to allow such lawsuits.
Americans, and all world victims of the Chinese pandemic, deserve answers regarding the virus’s origins, but the speculation has distracted from the facts already in plain sight: the actions the Communist Party took to hide the pandemic, actively spread disease, punish medical experts, and use global health agencies to spread misinformation. The Chinese Communist Party may or may not have created the virus itself, but all evidence indicates that it absolutely did create a pandemic whereas there would have been at worst a regional epidemic.
Below, nine of the most egregious actions by the Communist Party that created ideal conditions for the spread of contagious disease accelerated the spread of the virus once already detected and prevented prompt and appropriate containment.
Important to note while reading: China first alerted the W.H.O. to the discovery of a new pathogen in Wuhan on December 31, 2019. Wuhan officials locked down the city on January 23, 2020. Leaked Chinese government documents revealed the first diagnosis of novel coronavirus in Wuhan occurred on November 17, 2019. The government of Taiwan warned the W.H.O. in an email in late December that it had evidence of an infectious disease spreading within China.
Turning a Blind Eye to Illegal Wildlife Sales in Wet Markets
A study published this week by Scientific Reports, begun years prior to the pandemic and relying on close ties to vendors, revealed that consumers had access to nearly 50,000 live animals for sale as meat at the onset of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. Sellers had 31 different protected species of animals for sale between 2017 and 2019, the study noted. National Geographic has reported that among those species are wild animals such as snakes and porcupines.
While Chinese officials now claim the “true” origin of the virus is an American Army laboratory in Maryland – without evidence – the head of China’s Center for Disease Control, Gao Fu, initially blamed the outbreak on “wildlife sold illegally in a Wuhan seafood market.” Laws do exist to protect endangered species in China, but officials often fail to enforce them, a fact Gao was open about in January 2020.
The top suspected origin of the virus outside of the WIV since the early days of the pandemic has been Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market. The location, prior to its indefinite shutdown, was a “wet market,” an open-air bazaar featuring both farmers selling their crops and meat vendors, who butcher animals for consumers at the site. The “wetness” of the market typically comes from, among other liquids of concern, the blood of the animals sold. W.H.O. experts have accused vendors at the market of selling not just animal species known to carry coronaviruses at the market from Wuhan, but animals from all over China – including locations known to be home to coronavirus-carrying bats.
Among those suspected to sell animals at “wet markets” are employees at biological laboratories looking to make money off of animals no longer useful for research, China expert Steven Mosher told Breitbart News in February 2020. Even without a link to the laboratory, however, the Communist Party tolerated the maintenance of sites known to greatly escalate the danger of new diseases jumping from animals to humans.
“Virologists agree that markets where sick and stressed animals are caged amid their own waste are breeding grounds for deadly influenza viruses and other diseases that cross the species barrier — and that only luck has prevented previous pandemics,” People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) noted last year.
Destroying All Early Virus Samples
Scientists have not been able to identify a single animal sold at the Huanan Seafood Market carrying coronavirus. An W.H.O. investigation into the origin of the virus in Wuhan tested 80,000 animal samples in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, and none of them tested positive for the virus. The lack of evidence that the virus came from animals has fueled speculation around the WIV.
There is an obvious reason unrelated to the laboratory for this lack of evidence: Communist Party officials “disinfected” the Huanan Seafood Market and destroyed all early samples of the virus, making it impossible to find the Chinese coronavirus, or any other virus, at the wet market. The destruction of critical evidence also ensures that scientists cannot compare the earliest form of the virus to emerging variants, which would help prevent further outbreaks and design hardier vaccines.
“Based on comprehensive research and expert opinion, we decided to temporarily manage the pathogen causing the pneumonia as Class II – highly pathogenic – and imposed biosafety requirements on sample collection, transport and experimental activities, as well as destroying the samples,” Liu Dengfeng, an official with China’s National Health Commission, admitted in May 2020.
W.H.O. officials said it was “still worth” visiting Wuhan despite the destruction of evidence, but China forbade it for more than a year. By the time the limited W.H.O. investigation took place there, under strict Party control, any evidence that may have survived the regime’s purge had long faded.
Arresting and Silencing Wuhan Doctors for Warning of a Disease Outbreak
Months passed between the Communist Party first attaining knowledge of a novel disease and the Party deciding to alert global health authorities. During that time, courageous Wuhan doctors were working overtime to treat a sudden surge of cases of unexplained respiratory illness. These doctors documented evidence that the disease may be contagious, shared concerns it may be fueled by a coronavirus, and urged each other to use protective measures against infectious disease.
The Communist Party arrested and disappeared several of these doctors. Some resurfaced, forced to offer humiliating apologies for “spreading rumors.” Some have endured mysterious health conditions. Some have died.
China arrested at least eight people in January 2020 for “spreading rumors.” The most prominent among them was Dr. Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist who had shared a warning on social media to fellow health workers that he feared a disease similar to Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), another coronavirus illness, was spreading in Wuhan. Most of those messages were in group messages on WeChat, meaning he had not even made these statements in public. The Communist Party, nonetheless, forced him to sign a document apologizing and accepting, “We solemnly warn you: If you keep being stubborn, with such impertinence, and continue this illegal activity, you will be brought to justice. Is that understood?”
Li died in early February 2020. Authorities claimed he died of the Chinese coronavirus infection. At the time, scientists had not yet documented the disease’s low mortality rate among healthy, young people.
Another doctor, Ai Fen, disappeared in early 2020 after repeatedly warning residents of Wuhan, where she worked as director of emergency management at Wuhan Central Hospital, that the city was facing an outbreak of unknown infectious disease. Ai’s primary crime in the eyes of the Communist Party was insisting the virus was contagious while Chinese officials repeatedly told global health authorities and Wuhan residents that it was not.
Not counting bizarre comments published on her account on Weibo, a Chinese social media outlet, Ai disappeared from the public eye for about a year. In January 2021, she resurfaced half-blind and suffering from what she described as the results of botched cataract surgery. Her whereabouts remain unknown.
China largely continues to censor online mentions of both doctors.
Failing to Test and Isolate Potential Coronavirus Patients
While doctors faced government punishment for warning Wuhan citizens of the spread of infectious disease, Wuhan residents protested that hospitals largely limited testing of patients with relevant symptoms even after China had developed a PCR test to confirm the presence of the Chinese coronavirus in a person. Among the most prominent cases of this is that of Xu Dapeng, the founder of China’s oldest environmental organization. Xu and his wife both died of “pneumonia” in January 2020. Neither was tested for the Chinese coronavirus despite the repeated urging of family members.
In March 2020, multiple reports citing Wuhan residents, speaking anonymously for fear of their government, indicated that Wuhan hospitals were refusing to test individuals arriving with coronavirus symptoms.
Those not tested for coronavirus did not factor into China’s official statistics for the number of cases and deaths. As they were never diagnosed with a contagious disease, doctors also could not isolate them, meaning they posed a threat to health workers and other patients alike.
Patients also complained months into the pandemic that the government had begun forcing doctors to release contagious coronavirus patients, including those clearly still testing positive, to give the impression of a decline in hospitalizations. Doctors on state-run television insisted that those patients had made a full recovery without explaining the positive tests.
Hosting a “Family-Style” Banquet for 130,000 People a Month into the Pandemic
With the knowledge of the spread of an infectious disease and repeated warnings from Wuhan doctors – enough warnings to merit arrests – Communist Party officials decided to continue giving the world the impression the virus was not contagious by not isolating patients or preventing large gatherings. On the contrary: on January 18, Wuhan officials tried to break the Guinness World Record for largest banquet, inviting 130,000 people to a “family-style” Lunar New Year luncheon. The annual event typically caters to “empty nest” couples whose children cannot come home in time for the holiday, meaning an outstanding number of those attending were elderly and medically vulnerable people.
“The reason why the Baibuting community continued to host the Banquet this year was based on the previous judgment that the spread of the epidemic was limited to humans, so there was not enough warning,” Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang explained at the time, nearly a month after the W.H.O. received a warning from Taiwan regarding the nature of the disease and after Chinese police had arrested and humiliated Wuhan doctors for claiming the disease was contagious.
Cutting Domestic Flights, Letting 5 Million People Leave Wuhan
Zhou, who remains the mayor of Wuhan to this day, also revealed an outrageous fact in January 2020: 5 million of the city’s 11 million residents had left the city for the Lunar New Year holiday prior to the Communist Party imposing a lockdown. Many of those left the country.
Flight traffic data from January 2020 reportedly indicates that China largely shut down domestic travel at the same time that it was insisting to W.H.O. officials that the Chinese coronavirus was not contagious and condemning other countries considering bans on travelers from China.
“There is new evidence to show that China locked down all domestic traffic internally by end January 2020 but pushed to open foreign travel till end March,” India’s Economic Times reported in April 2020. “Data from Tom Tom traffic index, a traffic location site that covers 416 cities across 57 countries show that as a result of this strategy, China, intentionally or otherwise, was able to lockdown its cities unknown to the world.”
Chinese diplomats, meanwhile, proceeded to brand as unreasonable calls for restrictions on Chinese travelers.
“We hope countries will respect the professional and authoritative advice of the W.H.O., maintain normal economic cooperation, trade and people-to-people exchanges … and stop overreacting and fearmongering,” Xie Feng, Beijing’s top diplomat in Hong Kong, said in February 2020.
Blocking Warnings from Taiwan to the W.H.O. that the Virus Was Contagious
Taiwan, a sovereign nation still considered today to have one of the world’s most successful responses to the pandemic, is not a member of the World Health Organization. This is because the Chinese Communist Party claims Taiwan as a province, despite not having any political control over it, and has browbeaten the W.H.O. into excluding the nation from the agency entirely.
In the interest of public safety, Taiwanese officials, nonetheless, reached out to the W.H.O. in December 2019, stating it had evidence of a novel disease infecting people in central China and that those suspected of having the disease in Taiwan were being quarantined – a clear message that the disease appeared to be contagious.
“News resources today indicate that at least seven atypical pneumonia cases were reported in Wuhan, CHINA,” an email from Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) to the W.H.O. sent that day read. “Their [China’s] health authorities replied to the media that the cases were believed not SARS; however the samples are still under examination, and cases have been isolated for treatment.”
“Taiwan did report our concern on the severity of coronavirus last December to the W.H.O.,” Taiwan’s Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) said in a statement in March 2020. “But as a rule, our reporting is always a one-way street. W.H.O. mostly ignored our messages and never shared information as they do to other countries.”
Telling the W.H.O. the Virus Was Not Contagious
A month after the warning from Taiwan, the W.H.O. issued a public notice, at China’s behest, that the virus was not contagious.
“Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel [coronavirus] identified in [Wuhan],” a message on Twitter, still online today, reads:
Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020
W.H.O. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus dismissed travel bans as unnecessary and insisted the coronavirus was not as contagious as seasonal influenza.
“This [coronavirus] is not influenza. With the right measures, it can be contained. That is one of the key messages from [China],” Tedros said on February 27, 2020.
Scientists have subsequently compiled evidence that the two viruses are, indeed, dissimilar; the Chinese coronavirus appears to be far more contagious, as preventative measures against it appear to have entirely wiped out the 2020 flu season in the United States.
Selling Faulty PPE, Test Kits, Vaccines to the World
By March 2020, China’s attempts to hide the extremely contagious nature of the coronavirus had failed, so the Communist Party moved on to using the pandemic for profit, selling billions of dollars in protective equipment, vaccines, test kits, and other medical gear to the world. Chinese state media have openly boasted of its economic boom in light of sales of this equipment to the world. While cornering the market on the now highly sought-after products, Chinese companies around the world hoarded personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies, depleting country supplies and thus, generating more demand.
Much of this merchandise was of low quality and created a false sense of security that exacerbated regional outbreaks.
European nations were among the most severely hurt by the choice to purchase Chinese PPE. The U.K., Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic all discovered critical errors in the manufacturing of PPE made in China – mostly masks and gloves of low quality – that left health workers and others vulnerable to contagion.
India, Tanzania, Turkey, Czech Republic, and Israel have accused China of selling them test kits that do not offer accurate testing results, meaning individuals carrying the virus could test negative and go on to infect others. In Tanzania’s case, the tests resulted in false positives on several absurd examples, such as goat’s blood and the pulp from a pawpaw, a fruit similar to papaya.
China’s coronavirus vaccines also appear to be failing to prevent outbreaks in countries that trust them, particularly the low-quality product from Sinovac Biotech known as “Coronavac.” The government of Chile, where the overwhelming number of vaccinated people have received Coronavac, locked down the Santiago metropolitan area starting on Saturday due to a dramatic rise in cases that has corresponded to a dramatic rise in vaccinations with Chinese products. Seychelles documented a similar experience with Chinese products, as has Mongolia, which relied largely on a different Chinese product by the firm Sinopharm.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping has heavily promoted the use of Chinese vaccines globally, vowing to flood the market with billions of doses, but has actively refused to promote the vaccines at home. Beijing has not specified if Xi has received any coronavirus vaccination.
Gao Fu, the head of the Chinese CDC, admitted in April 2021 that Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates.”
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