A growing body of circumstantial evidence suggests that China was aware of the coronavirus long before it let the rest of us in on it. The newest data has people wondering if the communist nation may have known about the deadly virus as early as the summer of 2019.
On Tuesday, the U.K.’s Daily Mail reported that seven months before China notified the World Health Organization about the first case of COVID-19, buyers in the Hubei Province — including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Wuhan University of Science and Technology, the Hubei Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Institute of Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine — had doubled their purchases of PCR tests and equipment.
PCR stands for polymerase chain reaction which, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute is “a technique used to ‘amplify’ small segments of DNA.” These tests have been widely used to detect COVID-19.
According to the Mail, this data was obtained by investigators from an Australian-American research organization called Internet 2.0. The firm determined that the above-mentioned institutions had spent “36.7 million yuan ($5.7 million) in 2018” on PCR supplies. In 2019, their expenditures had risen to “67.4 million yuan ($10.5 million).”
That’s quite a spike. Weird, huh?
The article included a graph showing Hubei’s purchases of these materials from 2006 through 2019. Between 2006 and 2010, according to the graph, the amount spent annually hovered around 1 million yuan.
In 2011, it jumped to 5.3 million yuan, then crept up slowly through 2015 when the province spent 10.1 million yuan. In 2016, purchases nearly doubled to 19.1 and in 2017, spending reached 29.1.
It would be interesting to know when the Wuhan lab began its gain of function research and how that correlated with its ever-increasing expenditures on PCR materials.
Internet 2.0 allegedly found that between 2018 and 2019, the total number of contracts for purchases of PCR tests and equipment rose from 89 to 135.
According to the report, Internet 2.0 concluded that, “Based on the data analysed, it suggests the virus was highly likely to be spreading virulently in Wuhan, China as early as the summer of 2019 and definitely by the early autumn.”
While this new information doesn’t prove that China knew about the new virus for months before announcing it to the world, it is unusual that the province where COVID-19 originated would suddenly double its purchases of tests.
And China should be asked to explain why so many tests were purchased.
Even when it allowed a small group of investigators from the World Health Organization to visit the lab in early February, the nation had had over a year to “clean up” and the circumstances were highly controlled.
The Chinese government has lied to the world about so many things by now that it’s impossible to trust them. For example, we were initially told there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
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
Then, ten days later, the WHO informed us that, yes, human-to-human transmission was possible. The organization reported, “One confirmed case in Vietnam had no travel history to any part of China but was a family member of a confirmed case who visited Wuhan. This suggests an instance of human to human transmission that occurred in Vietnam.”
In April 2020, Fox News’ Bret Baier issued an explosive report. Sources allegedly told him that China “100 percent” both “suppressed data and changed data.” He was told that “samples were destroyed, contaminated areas scrubbed, some early reports erased, and academic articles stifled.”
Baier also learned that no domestic flights could depart from the Wuhan airport. However, there was no ban on international departures from the city. Chinese President Xi Jinping didn’t want the coronavirus to spread in his own country. It seems he didn’t care about the rest of the world.
The Chinese government even tried to blame the U.S. for the virus. In March 2020, Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tried to advance the conspiracy theory that the coronavirus was brought to Wuhan by the U.S. Army when 300 soldiers traveled there in mid-October for the Military World Games. At the time, Zhao posted the following tweets:
This article is very much important to each and every one of us. Please read and retweet it. COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US. https://t.co/LPanIo40MR
— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) March 13, 2020
2/2 CDC was caught on the spot. When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation! pic.twitter.com/vYNZRFPWo3
— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) March 12, 2020
By the time we are through it, this pandemic will have changed the world in ways large and small. The Biden administration seems uninterested in holding the Chinese government accountable. So we may have to wait for some answers.
Ultimately, the truth will come out. Much of it already has.
