China had the genome of the COVID-19 virus mapped two weeks before the global outbreak. However, it withheld the documents from the World Health Organization (WHO) and is receiving widespread criticism. The extra two weeks could have been pivotal to the global response to the pandemic.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 17th (local time) that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently submitted a report containing this analysis to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee.
According to the report, a virologist, Dr. Lili Ren of the Institute of Pathogen Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, registered nearly the sequence of the COVID-19 virus’ structure in the GenBank, a genetic database of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), on December 28, 2019. This was when cases of pneumonia were rapidly increasing in Wuhan, China.
The Chinese research team essentially had information revealing the early COVID-19 sequencing. However, the Chinese authorities did not report this to the WHO.
It was not until about two weeks later, on January 11, 2020, that the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus was first reported to the WHO.
Considering the progress of related research, the Chinese authorities did not announce the cause of the outbreak for at least two weeks after they had identified it. Instead, at that time, the Chinese authorities claimed to the WHO and others that the cause of the COVID-19 virus was “unknown.”
The Chinese authorities did not take any position, especially when the U.S. National Institutes of Health asked for details about the sequence. It was even revealed that they completely deleted the analysis information registered in GenBank five days after the first report to the WHO.
The U.S. Department of Health explained that the sequence analysis information of the COVID-19 virus, which Dr. Ren registered and then deleted, was almost identical to the detailed sequence analysis information later announced by the Chinese authorities.
Experts have leveled criticism at the international medical community, arguing that valuable time was lost in recognizing the spread of COVID-19 and preparing an adequate medical defense system. Additionally, there has been criticism regarding the delayed development of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Wall Street Journal noted the challenges in definitively confirming the initial outbreak process of COVID-19 through this report. They stated that it remains unclear whether the virus spread to humans from wild animals like bats, detailing the specific process of the outbreak or whether it originated from a laboratory leak in China.
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According to foreign media, such as the New York Post on the 16th (local time), a laboratory in China recently created a variant of the COVID-19 virus with a 100% fatality rate.
The GX_P2V virus is modified from GX/2017, a COVID cousin first discovered in pangolins three years before the pandemic.
According to research results announced in Beijing, every mouse infected died a painful death within eight days. Before the experiment, the research team manipulated the brains of the rats to have a genetic composition similar to humans and then infected them with GX_P2V. The virus injected into the ‘humanized’ rats infiltrated the lungs, bones, eyes, etc., and the rats eventually died after showing symptoms such as rapid weight loss, body shape changes, and whitening of the eyes.
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