The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been accused of covering up the Covid outbreak after details emerged of an ultimatum the government gave lab scientists.
On January 3, 2020, the Chinese National Health Commission is said to have issued a memo ordering labs to either hand over their samples or destroy them “on the spot”.
Additionally, the CCP dictated that scientists should not share information without its permission, vowed to “strengthen law enforcement inspections" and warned it would “severely deal with” those that defied the order.
The internal order was allegedly sent out just two days before the rest of the world were alerted to the outbreak of Covid-19, by which time it had spread far and wide.
President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping
Reuters
Though China remained silent, the world was alerted to Covid by the global infectious diseases reporting system ProMed.
Obtained by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department, the memo includes the phrase: “No institution or individual may release any relevant information to the outside world without authorization.”
The memo also reads: “Opinions that have not been scientifically verified and reviewed must not be publicly disseminated to the public.”
The lawsuit was started by US Right to Know (USRTK), a nonprofit investigative public health research and journalism group that has been praised by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and the Lancet Global Health report.
Police and security members in protective suits stand outside cordoned off food stores following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai, China March 29, 2022
Reuters
The scientific community looking the determine the origins of Covid have long complained about the investigations being hampered by Chinese censorship and destruction of early lab samples.
Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, said: “Having access to additional sequences from the early days would greatly help researchers to infer what happened in Wuhan in 2019 and to distinguish between the different scenarios.”
Courtier-Orgogozo claims that at least 100 individuals with symptoms in December 2019 have been sampled, but only around 20 genome sequences from these patients have been made available to international researchers.
China’s cloak and dagger approach to public health information has infuriated researchers for decades.
The leaked order echoes the data censorship during the Sars epidemic that began in 2002, when the Government decreed that only the China CDC could legally possess viral samples.
The long-term effects of Covid will be felt for generations to come
PAWidely known as the 'Wuhan whistleblower,' Dr Li Wenliang became a martyr for the cause of warning the world about Covid.
An eye doctor in Wuhan, Dr Li Wenliang died after contracting Covid-19 but before passing away he rallied against China's downplaying and censoring of the severity of the disease.
Despite being told by police to "stop making false comments" and "spreading rumours," Dr Li Wenliang spread the word and kept followers updated on his condition through the social media site Weibo.
Dr Li Wenliang died on February 7, 2020, sparking a rare wave of anti-establishment anger and solidarity against censorship.
Both China and the Wuhan lab have fervently and repeatedly denied all allegations.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there have been more than 760,000,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 6,900,000 deaths worldwide.
In the UK, the WHO estimates there have been more than 24,500,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and around 227,000 deaths.
