by Ian Birrell at The Daily Mail
A cluster of researchers from China‘s secretive Wuhan laboratories fell sick with ‘Covid-like’ symptoms at least six weeks before the Beijing government admitted an outbreak of a new virus in their city, according to the leading US investigator looking into the start of the pandemic.
David Asher, who led State Department inquiries into Covid-19‘s origins, told The Mail on Sunday that three scientists are believed to have become ill with the mysterious respiratory condition in the second week of November, 2019.
‘There are suspicions – for good reasons – of an initial cluster tied to Wuhan Institute of Virology in November and that people started to be hospitalised,’ he said.
‘Hard to conclude definitely it was Covid but it seems highly likely.’
A cluster of researchers from China’s secretive Wuhan laboratories fell sick with ‘Covid-like’ symptoms at least six weeks before the Beijing government admitted an outbreak of a new virus in their city, according to the leading US investigator looking into the start of the pandemic
According to ‘credible’ information from a well-connected foreign government, the wife of one researcher died later that month, Asher added.
This is a clear sign of human transmission – yet Beijing did not confirm this crucial fact to the World Health Organisation until mid-January last year, by which time the coronavirus had spread across China and then started seeping around the planet.
‘By December, if not sooner, the Chinese had to know that they had a problem on their hands with a mysterious coronavirus spreading in Wuhan,’ said Asher, adding that there could also have been unidentified earlier clusters.
Does this map reveal a tantalising new clue?
Could this map from a study published in the journal Nature offer an insight into Covid’s origins?
It illustrates the result of tests on almost 10 million Wuhan residents above the age of six last May – a month after lockdown was lifted in the city – and shows the number of detected asymptomatic cases.
Areas with the highest levels are in red, unsurprisingly clustered mainly in the populous city centre district beside the Yangtze river, with lower rates in orange and yellow on the opposite bank that is home to the animal market that was originally the centre of suspicion over the disease’s outbreak.
Could this map from a study published in the journal Nature offer an insight into Covid’s origins?
However, the map, from a paper by Chinese and British scientists, shows one isolated pocket in red with at least three times the infection levels of surrounding Jiangxia Province.
It is by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a lab conducting research into coronaviruses.
A vaccine expert who suspects a lab leak said it may be ‘a beautiful encapsulation of what everyone is surmising as the origin’.
But others advise caution, suggesting that a major hospital nearby may also be showing high infection levels.
He said that as world experts on coronaviruses, the Chinese ‘must have known’ this was not normal flu.
‘If they had not covered up human-to-human transmission, many millions of people around the world would not have died,’ he added.
Asher, who served under Democrat and Republican presidents, has previously led US investigations into biological, chemical and nuclear proliferation in Iran, North Korea and Pakistan, as well as tracking the finances of Islamic State and drug cartel chiefs.
He added: ‘If the Chinese do not come forward with the truth, or we do not sort out this disaster, it is one of the greatest failures in the history of human society.
‘They were engaged in a shocking range of dangerous experiments into highly pathogenic, man-made versions of Covid-like viruses in Wuhan.
‘A lab leak is not 100 per cent certain but it seems at this stage the only logical source of origin.
‘If there was an accident, it doesn’t mean you end relations with China but we must understand the nature of their society that let this happen, and impose new controls on bio-technology since we have seen how dangerous it can be to the world.’
Asher’s comments fuel fears that China may be covering up a lab accident, amid growing…
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