[Daily Skeptic] I wrote recently about the origins of the pandemic and who knew what and when, noting that both the U.S. and China clearly knew about the virus earlier than they have admitted and both are still engaged in a cover-up of what really happened and what they knew.Here, after a brief recap, I want to look more closely at who isn’t involved in the cover-up, or not entirely, and what that tells us.
It’s clear that China is covering up both the lab origin of the virus and early spread prior to December 2019. As a new report from independent research group DRASTIC, summarised in the Washington Post, reminds us, within hours of the first public announcement of "pneumonia of unknown origin" by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on December 30th 2019, a second notice appeared warning "not to disclose information to the public without authorisation". This lack of transparency continued, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issuing gag orders, punishing ’whistleblowers’, hiding key Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) virus data, not cooperating with investigations and failing to acknowledge early cases which undermine the wet market origin story. While some such cases from November 2019 were leaked to the South China Morning Post, the CCP has never officially acknowledged them.
It’s also clear that U.S. scientists are covering up the lab leak and not cooperating with the investigation — which was the reason Jeffrey Sachs disbanded the Covid origins taskforce which formed part of the Lancet Covid commission he was chairing, perceiving severe conflicts of interest and a basic lack of cooperation. As recently as July 2022, two NIH-funded studies involving Kristian Andersen and others claimed to find conclusive evidence for the wet market theory, despite there now being reams of evidence for international spread of the virus before December 2019, which the studies failed even to acknowledge.
The U.S. CDC likewise is covering up the early spread of the virus as part of its lab leak cover-up, and has refused to acknowledge or investigate the presence of the virus in the U.S. before Jan 18th 2020 despite all the evidence that now shows this to be a fact.
So who isn’t involved in the cover-up? The World Health Organisation (WHO) does not appear to be. Back in June 2020, the WHO encouraged countries to look properly into early spread. As the Guardian reported: "The WHO has urged countries to investigate any other early suspicious cases, so that the circulation of the virus can be better understood, encouraging doctors to check records for pneumonia cases of unspecified origin in late 2019."