COVID-19 Started in America, Not China, New Chinese Government Report Claims

China fired off another salvo yesterday in the five-year long propaganda war over the origins of COVID-19, saying there is no evidence the outbreak started in China and pinning the blame on the United States.

In an apparent response to the Trump administration posting ‘Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19‘ on the White House website two weeks earlier, which pointed the finger at China as well as corrupt officials and complicit scientists in the US, the Chinese Government issued an 8,000 word riposte in which Beijing sought to absolve itself of blame entirely and set out ‘evidence’ of a US origin.

Much of the evidence of early spread of the virus we have covered extensively in the Daily Sceptic. But Beijing’s tendentious presentation of it and insistence that the virus definitely didn’t come from China or start in Wuhan leaves its report much more propaganda than science – as you’d expect, of course.

China claims to have been open and transparent in its origins investigation, which is laughable when you look at how tightly controlled its messaging has been on the subject. On the other hand, China has produced far more scientific reports on Covid origins than America has – reports which it naturally summarises in detail in the new paper. The question, of course, is how trustworthy these investigations really are, given how convenient they invariably are to Beijing’s line. The US, by contrast, produced only a small handful of investigative reports, which threw up some inconvenient findings, and then stopped completely. Is it not more likely that China was more willing to publish falsified results whereas the US just decided to squash them?

The White House lab leak page also criticises the use of lockdowns instead of “prioritising the protection of the most vulnerable”, slights masks as having “no conclusive evidence” of benefit and calls the six-feet social distancing rule “arbitrary and not based on science”. In reply, Beijing castigates the US for its “slow and ineffective” response to the virus and slams the first Trump administration in particular for initially downplaying the virus’s severity. Beijing is clearly still wedded to its extreme lockdown policies, which regrettably set the pattern for the world.

Here’s the section of China’s report trying to pin the blame on America, to which I have added some comments (for some reason the report contains no links or footnotes to allow independent confirmation of claims):

Numerous studies have shown that SARS-CoV-2 originated outside China. Research and analysis conducted by the US CDC and NIH indicate that prior to the outbreak in Wuhan, multiple regions in the US recorded positive SARS-CoV-2 test results and other evidence of the virus.

From May to October 2019, Virginia reported 19 respiratory disease outbreaks, a significant increase from the 13 and 15 outbreaks recorded during the same period in the previous two years [It’s not very much higher, and no further historical comparison is given]. Laboratory tests were unable to identify the causes of some cases [This is normal]. In July 2019, two communities in northern Virginia reported outbreaks of pneumonia with unknown causes, which local media suspected to be “a mystery virus” [It could be anything]. A total of 54 people exhibited symptoms such as fever, coughing, and feableness, resulting in two deaths. That same month, the Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory, located just one hour’s drive from the affected area, was suddenly shut down [This should be explained and may even be connected with the local outbreak, but there’s no reason to conclude it was SARS-CoV-2].

In 2019, a number of US states reported mysterious “e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury” cases. The symptoms were highly similar to those of COVID-19, including coughing, shortness of breath and fatigue, with some resulting in severe lung damage. Illinois and Wisconsin reported their first cases in March 2019 [This is too early for Covid based on molecular clock studies], and the number of cases peaked in August and September. This surge led to a total of 2,807 hospitalisations, including 68 deaths, across the US. The first death was recorded on August 23rd 2019.

According to data from the US CDC, sporadic cases of ‘flu’ began to appear in South Carolina as early as September 2019 [This happens every year]. Beginning in November, a widespread ‘flu’ outbreak was recorded over a six week period in the area [A flu outbreak in November? Whatever next?]. Data from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control revealed that in the first week of December 2019, hospitalisations related to ‘flu’ had increased by 41% year-on-year [This just means it was an above average flu season in the state]. When testifying in a House hearing related to COVID-19, then US CDC director admitted that some COVID-19 deaths had been misdiagnosed as flu in the US [His comments didn’t relate to this period].

The US CDC data indicate that the first confirmed COVID-19 case in Florida was on March 1st 2020. However, according to the data on 171 COVID-19 patients published on the Florida Department of Health (DOH) website, the earliest confirmed cases were in January 2020. Most of these individuals reported no international travel history, suggesting that the virus was already circulating in local communities at the time [This is likely true]. This crucial information about the timing of their diagnosis has since been deleted, and the then data chief at the Florida DOH was fired shortly after [The US does appear to have engaged in an institutional cover-up of early spread, of which this may be a part].

A US CDC study revealed that out of 7,389 serological survey samples collected from nine states between December 13th 2019 and January 17th 2020, 106 were SARS-CoV-2 antibody positive. This suggests that the virus existed in the US before the first official case was identified [This is probably true]. Similarly, the NIH ‘All of Us’ Research Programme tested 24,079 blood samples collected from participants across 50 states between January 2nd and March 18th 2020, identifying nine containing SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. The two earliest were collected in Illinois and Massachusetts on January 7th and 8th, and seven out of the nine predate the first officially reported SARS-CoV-2 infections in Illinois, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Mississippi. These findings show that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating across the US at a low level as early as December 2019, well before the first official cases were recorded [This appears to be true, but is no earlier than the Wuhan outbreak].

A study by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service under the US Department of Agriculture found that of 241 samples taken from white-tailed deer before January 2020, one tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. This indicates that the infection was already present in the deer population as far back as 2019 [One result could easily be a false positive; the date in 2019 is also not given].

From January 2015 to June 2020, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported 28 lab incidents involving genetically engineered microorganisms to the NIH. Six of these incidents involved various types of genetically modified coronavirus. Eight researchers might have been infected, yet only one was placed in quarantine. The university, NIH and CDC all declined to disclose the incident reports to the public. An expert associated with the Lancet suggested that [the] novel coronavirus might not have come from nature, and instead likely came from an incident that occurred in a US bio-technology lab.

Between 2006 and 2013, the US reported at least 1,500 serious laboratory incidents involving coronaviruses and other highly dangerous pathogens linked to diseases such as SARS, MERS, Ebola, anthrax, smallpox, and avian influenza. As recently as November 6th 2024, 43 lab monkeys escaped from a South Carolina research facility. There have been recurring laboratory incidents in the US, and the management of labs is a cause for concern. What were the real reasons for the shutdown of the Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory in late 2019? The US owes the world an explanation.

These questionable events all suggest that COVID-19 may have emerged in the US earlier than the US official timeline, and earlier than the outbreak in China. A thorough and in-depth investigation into the origins of the virus should be conducted in the US.

Actually, I do think there’s some good evidence the virus may have been created in America but leaked while being tested in Wuhan – and the US should be doing much more to investigate this possibility, and to expose the role of US scientists and officials more generally. But this is very different to what the new Chinese report is arguing, which seeks to absolve China of culpability entirely.

Here’s the section where China sets out its ‘evidence’ that it is innocent of the virus (with my notes added).

In 2020, a study on the time to the most recent common ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, conducted by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and collaborating teams, indicated that the outbreak in Wuhan likely occurred between mid-November and early December 2019. This timeline aligns closely with the onset date of the first reported COVID-19 case – December 8th of that year [A leaked Chinese Government report identified earlier hospitalised cases, with the earliest symptom onset date of November 17th].

After the joint WHO-China study concluded in 2021, Chinese scientists made another spatiotemporal distribution analysis of 76,000 screening records from medical institutions and 174 early confirmed cases. The analysis revealed no evidence of unusual clusters of respiratory illnesses in Wuhan between October and early December 2019 [A Harvard report confirms this picture, finding no rise in internet ‘cough’ searches or influenza-like hospital admissions in Wuhan before December].

In a 2022 serological and epidemiological study, Chinese scientists detected no specific antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in 43,850 blood donation samples collected in Wuhan between September 1st and December 31st, 2019. These findings provided evidence that the virus was not present in Wuhan prior to December 2019 [But the leaked Chinese Government report indicates it was present in November, so how reliable is this study?].

A number of research teams in China conducted systematic testing on more than 80,000 samples collected from bats, pangolins, wild birds, wild boars, raccoon dogs and other wildlife, as well as livestock and poultry across the country. Sample collection spanned from 2017 to 2021, and the analyses detected no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 circulation in these animal populations. Additionally, in early 2020, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences screened bat species in Wuhan and its surrounding areas and found no virus genetically related to SARS-CoV-2. These findings effectively ruled out the possibility that this virus originated from local wildlife in the Wuhan vicinity [These findings are often cited by lab leak proponents, though of course we don’t know how reliable they are].

In 2023, a paper published by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention showed that all 457 animal samples collected from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in the early stage of the epidemic tested negative for SARS-CoV-2, while 74 out of 923 environmental samples from the market were positive. Genomic sequencing of three isolated viral strains revealed 99.9-100% genetic identity with early COVID-19 cases, indicating that viral shedding by infected individuals was the likely source of contamination in the market environment [Once again, findings cited by opponents of zoonotic and wet market theories, but we only have China’s word on their accuracy].

Source tracing of outbreaks in clusters in locations other than Wuhan between 2020 and 2022 revealed the likelihood of introduction from overseas through cold-chain transportation [Beijing’s favoured theory, which it pushes hard in this report]. In June and July 2020, new outbreaks emerged in Beijing’s Xinfadi Agricultural Products Wholesale Market and Dalian, Liaoning Province. It is worth noting that prior to these outbreaks, no new cases had been confirmed in Beijing and Dalian for 56 and 111 consecutive days, respectively. In addition, Beijing’s early cases were primarily concentrated among stallholders from the aquatic products section in Xinfadi market, while those in Dalian involved aquatic product processing workers in a seafood company. Several tracing investigations indicated that the virus originated from other countries and regions and subsequently entered China via cold-chain transportation [No citations are provided in this report and we only have China’s word on these].

On September 24th 2020, two stevedores in Qingdao, Shandong Province were diagnosed with COVID-19. The two cases had no travel history or contact with other confirmed cases. The only epidemiological link was their involvement in handling the same batch of imported frozen food products on September 19th 2020. Several samples from the outer packaging of the frozen food products tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acids. Whole genome sequencing confirmed that the virus detected on the packaging was the source of infection for the two cases, and viable virus from the packaging was successfully isolated and cultured. This marked the world’s first successful isolation of viable SARS-CoV-2 from cold-chain food packaging, demonstrating cold-chain transportation as a transmission pathway for SARS-CoV-2 [This seems mighty convenient and independent corroboration is, as usual, not available].

Given that the early confirmed cases in Wuhan were concentrated in the aquatic products section of Huanan market, there is a possibility that the outbreak in the market at the end of 2019 was introduced to China from abroad via cold-chain transportation [It’s actually a theory that would benefit from proper and credible investigation, which China’s is not].

These findings were published in the ‘Joint WHO-China Study’ and international journals including the Lancet, Nature, Cell, National Science Review, Scientific Reports and Virus Evolution [It’s a shame links or citations are not provided, but publication of Chinese studies even in these journals is no guarantee of being sound or honest, unfortunately]. With solid laboratory data supporting the likelihood of four possible introduction pathways, the study concluded:

• Direct zoonotic spillover is considered to be a possible-to-likely pathway [Despite not finding the virus in any relevant wildlife, and despite the likely engineered features of the virus];
• Introduction through an intermediate host is considered to be a likely to very likely pathway [Despite not finding any evidence of such a host];
• Introduction through cold/food chain products is considered a possible pathway;
• Introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway [Ridiculous, and contrary to what the new report alleges in relation to an American lab origin].

China’s fully open and collaborative stance demonstrates its commitment to scientific principles and integrity, and its responsibility for building a community of health for all.

China has actively participated in global virus origins-tracing efforts with the greatest sincerity, as it firmly upholds that the truth does not lie in premature accusations but in meticulous data-based verification. Through systematic epidemiological investigations, molecular tracing, animal host screening and studies on cold-chain transmission, the possibility of Wuhan being the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 was scientifically ruled out [Convenient]. These efforts have provided the global scientific community with critical empirical evidence and established a research paradigm for future studies.

So, are you convinced? Me neither.