February 7, 2022

China hid the outbreak of Covid-19 from the world for months[i]. Brave Chinese citizens had been sending out smoke signals, but governments did not take notice. Now, there is reason to suspect that some scientists in the U.S. were aware of (if not complicit in) a cover-up that began as soon as the pandemic started.

It wasn’t until December 31, 2019, that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) acknowledged that a SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had broken out in Hubei province, where the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is located. But Beck says there’s substantial evidence of it having begun much earlier. Let’s look at the events chronologically.

Months before the official acknowledgement, photographs and videos of empty streets, closed businesses, and the enforcement of precautionary measures in Hubei had been appearing on social media. Beijing’s denials of a pandemic were disproved by posts from medical professionals showing hospitals overflowing with sick and dying patients. Videos showed officials dragging away infected people from their homes, even welding doors shut to confine people to their buildings.

More to lend credence to retrospective theories of wrong-doing came from a September 12, 2019 event – the WIV database on coronaviruses was taken down. Research organizations freely share such databases with scientists, but WIV alleged that hackers were targeting it. The institute requisitioned additional security. Some days later, the institute updated its air-handling system, an unusual activity to prioritize during a data breach. Experts believe the lab was probably rectifying its biosafety ventilation – but after the virus had escaped.

In October of the same year, Wuhan hosted the Military World Games, attended by more than 10,000 athletes from 100 countries. Participants remarked that the streets were empty; Wuhan seemed like “a ghost town.” They spoke of rumors that the government had warned Chinese citizens not to venture out. On arrival, athletes were required to have their temperature taken and to wash their hands before entering any building. When American athletes returned home, according to information released by the Pentagon, infections occurred at 63 military facilities. In addition, athletes from other countries reported falling ill at the games and later infecting their families. Military and medical experts were already suspecting that China was hiding a medical emergency.

On December 3, 2019, following reports of researchers getting sick, the WIV requested an air- curtain incinerator, a device used to control air emissions during burning. While it’s not unusual for labs to use it to prevent airborne pathogens from spreading, the timing – and China’s stonewalling of international efforts to investigate the institute – have made scientists wonder what was amiss.

Later in December, an intriguing high-level intervention took place. On President Xi Jinping’s orders, access was blocked to some abandoned mines in Yunnan province. Officials confiscated bat samples taken from the site by a visiting team. Chinese coronavirus specialists were warned not to speak to the press.