A Chinese researcher isolated and mapped COVID-19 — and uploaded it to a US-run database — at least two weeks before Beijing officially identified the virus that has claimed more than 3 million lives worldwide, according to a stunning new document.
Documents obtained from the US Department of Health and Human Services by House Republicans and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, show virologist Dr. Lili Ren uploaded almost the entire structural sequence of COVID-19 to a US government-run database on Dec 28, 2019.
The work is very similar to what Beijing finally presented to the World Health Organization on January 11, 2020, when the virus had already spread around the world, according to documents obtained by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The extra two weeks could prove crucial to the global response to the outbreak and the development of a COVID-19 vaccine as scientists race to understand the virus in late 2019 and early 2020.
Ren, from the Institute of Pathogen Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, is trying to publish information about the virus to GenBank, which is run by the US National Institutes of Health.
His work, however, was never published on the site, instead being deleted after he failed to address a technical issue with his submission — an issue unrelated to the science underpinning his work, the document states.
Scientists at the Institute of Pathogen Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences study the coronavirus in February 2020. REUTERS
Ren is also the recipient of a small grant from the controversial non-profit EcoHealth Alliance.
The New York-based organization got the same National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grant given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has now been barred from receiving US funding for the next 10 years on evidence the outbreak originated in a Chinese lab.
Dr. Anthony Fauci was director of NIAID during the outbreak and has received widespread criticism of his handling of the crisis. He retires in December 2022.
Ren did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment on his submission to GenBank.
Documents revealing early sequencing of COVID-19 were released after the House Energy and Commerce Committee threatened to subpoena the Department of Health and Human Services.
The House committee noted that Ren’s case was the earliest known example of early work by Chinese researchers on COVID sequencing being deleted after being submitted to GenBank, suggesting intervention from Beijing.
Chairman of the Rep. Committee. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said the incident underscored the need to further investigate what Chinese and US health officials knew in days the beginning of the pandemic.
The complete sequence of the virus presented by China in January is identical to the work of Dr. Lili Ren who was deleted in December. Getty Images/iStockphoto
“This important finding further emphasizes why we cannot trust any so-called ‘facts’ or data provided by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] and seriously questions the validity of any scientific theory based on such information,” the lawmaker said in a statement.
“The American people deserve to know the truth about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and our investigation has uncovered a range of concerns, including how taxpayer dollars are spent, how our government’s public health agencies operate, and the need for more oversight of research grants to foreign scientists,” they added.
“The documents released today are consistent with the evidence found by the Select Subcommittee and Dr. Jeremy Farrar’s published work,” a spokesperson for the House panel investigating the coronavirus outbreak told The Post.
Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, told The Post that the information obtained by the House committee has been in the public domain since February 2020, when the Chinese newspaper Caixin published an article about it, which was released shortly after.
Medical workers struggle to treat early patients at the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, China. Reuters
Ebright before posted on X on details on April 2, 2020, said sequencing of the virus’s genome began on December 24 and analysis confirmed it was “a new coronavirus related to, but distinct from, SARS-CoV on December 27.”
“It is certainly a misappropriation — an actionable misappropriation — that the NIH has withheld this information from Congress for months,” Ebright told The Post.
“Former NIH Director Collins and former NIH Acting Director Tabak need to be held accountable for their misconduct, with, at a minimum, forfeiture of federal positions and federal pensions,” he added.
“The recent revelation by Rep. McMorris Rodgers that HHS had a nearly complete sequence of the virus in December 2019, weeks earlier than previously claimed, is just the latest example of HHS’s attempt to prevent the public from fully understanding where COVID-19 came from,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told The Post.
“In September 2023, I revealed that NIAID officer Dr. Ping Chen reported on security concerns at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in November 2017. HHS continues to refuse to provide me with a version of Dr.’s report. Chen completely unedited and made himself available for interviews. The American people deserve the full truth about the origins of COVID-19.”
The Chinese embassy did not comment on the incident but defended China’s response to the outbreak and the information it provided to the world.
“China has continued to refine our science-based COVID response to make it more targeted,” an embassy spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.
“China’s COVID response policy is science-based, effective and consistent with China’s national reality. They can face the test of history.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
