CHINA covered up claims that the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology ordered scientists not to talk about Covid, bombshell emails have revealed.
US State Department correspondence, obtained through freedom of information requests, points to more evidence of how the Communist Party tried to control the narrative during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
Read our coronavirus live blog for the latest updates
Emails uncovered by US Right to Know (USRTK) – a public health research non-profit organisation – show how the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) told staff “not to discuss Covid-19” in January 2020.
And a memo shared by Terminus 2049 – a crowd-sourced project which archives materials censored by Chinese media outlets – showed the alleged directive from the top of the lab.
It appears to show the director general of the Wuhan lab emailing staff to “strictly prohibit” them from speaking publicly about “the unknown causes” of the virus.
Professor Wang Yanyi, the director, has previously denied all allegations of a leak and claimed her facility is “100 per cent” safe.
The official diplomatic cables obtained by USRTK cite a Guangzhou-based blogger’s report which was then scrubbed from the internet by censors.
The correspondence states: “A Guangzhou-based blogger had written about a January order given by the Director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology to the staff in January to not discuss Covid-19.
“The post has since been blocked on social media.”
The cables were marked “SBU” – which mean sensitive but unclassified.
The messages also reveal how there was an “uptick” in the blocking of WeChat groups, Weibo posts, and other websites in the early days of the outbreak as Chinese authorities sought to censor chatter around the virus.
Labs in Wuhan have been at the centre of a storm ever since Covid first emerged just a stone’s throw from the WIV which was known to be studying very similar bat viruses.
Shocking biosecurity lapses spanning over 40 years have led some to question the official Chinese line that the disease was passed from animals to humans – and the theory that the pandemic emerged from a lab in Wuhan is gaining momentum.
Gary Ruskin, executive director of USRTK, told Trending In The News Online: “There is extensive evidence of gag orders and suppression of evidence in China regarding the origins of Covid-19.
“This is just one more small piece of evidence on top of that giant heap.
“I’ve worked on public interest investigations for nearly 30 years. In my experience, when an entity acts like this, it’s a glaring sign that they are hiding something serious.
“Otherwise, why endure all the trouble and shame of denying, hiding, obscuring, burying evidence?
He went on: “It’s crucial to ourselves, our children and grandchildren that we figure this puzzle out. It will be a mark of shame for all of us if we can’t figure out how to come together to do this.”
Ruskin called for a “three-track” investigation into the origins of the pandemic – which shouldn’t just focus on China.
“First, an international investigation within China to search for physical evidence of zoonotic and/or lab origin, hopefully with the full cooperation of the Chinese government,” he said.
“This must include a full and unfettered search of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan CDC. Second, western intelligence agencies have to put their data together to see what can be made of all of it all.
“Third, the US Congress should establish an independent commission to investigate.
“There also has to be an investigation of the role of the Americans and the French in partnering and funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
WIV director Professor Wang specialised in research on SARS before the pandemic, and previously studied how viruses can attack the lungs and cause respiratory diseases.
She was appointed the head of WIV in 2018 after starting working there in 2012, and is also a leading member of one of the few “legally recognised” political parties in China aside from the Communis Party – called Zhi Gong.
The scientist gave a rare interview last summer when US channel NBC visited WIV – one of the few Western news outlets to do so.
“It is unfortunate that we have been targeted as a scapegoat for the origin of the virus,” she said.
“Any person would inevitably feel very angry or misunderstood being subject to unwarranted or malicious accusations while carrying out research and related work in the fight against the virus.”
And in an interview with China’s state-run TV channel CGTN, she dismissed allegations as a “pure fabrication”.
“In fact, like everyone else, we didn’t even know the virus existed. How could it have leaked from our lab when we never had it?,” she said.
