{"id":10623,"date":"2020-04-16T18:49:09","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T15:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/?p=10623"},"modified":"2020-04-16T18:49:11","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T15:49:11","slug":"sources-believe-coronavirus-outbreak-originated-in-wuhan-lab-as-part-of-chinas-efforts-to-compete-with-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/?p=10623","title":{"rendered":"Sources believe coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan lab as part of China’s efforts to compete with US"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Get all the latest news on coronavirus and more delivered daily to your inbox.\u00a0Sign up here.<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

EXCLUSIVE:\u00a0<\/strong>There is increasing confidence that the\u00a0COVID-19<\/a>\u00a0outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory, though not as a bioweapon\u00a0but as part of China’s attempt\u00a0to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States,\u00a0multiple sources who have been briefed on the details of early actions by China’s government and seen relevant materials tell Fox News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\"\"
In this Tuesday, March 10, 2020, photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping talks by video with patients and medical workers at the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei Province. (Xie Huanchi\/Xinhua via AP)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This may be the «costliest government cover-up of all time,» one of the sources said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sources\u00a0believe\u00a0the initial transmission of the virus\u00a0\u2013 a naturally occurring strain that was being studied there \u2013 was bat-to-human and that «patient zero» worked at the laboratory, then went into the population in Wuhan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cincreasing confidence\u201d comes from classified and open-source documents and evidence, the sources said. Fox News has requested to see the evidence directly. Sources emphasized — as is often the case with intelligence — that it\u2019s not definitive and should not be characterized as such. Some inside the administration and the intelligence and epidemiological communities are more skeptical, and the investigation is continuing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What all of the sources agree about is the extensive cover-up of data and information about COVID-19 orchestrated by the Chinese government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked by Fox News’ John Roberts about the reporting, President Trump remarked at Wednesday’s coronavirus press briefing, «More and more we’re hearing the story…we are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation.»<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Documents detail early efforts by doctors at the lab and early efforts at containment. The Wuhan wet market initially identified as a possible point of origin never sold bats, and the sources tell Fox News that blaming the wet market was an effort by China to deflect blame from the laboratory, along with the country’s propaganda efforts targeting the U.S. and Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. Embassy officials\u00a0warned in January 2018<\/a>\u00a0about inadequate safety at the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab and passed on information about scientists conducting risky research on coronavirus from bats,\u00a0The Washington Post\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responding to the report, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday afternoon: «It should be no surprise to you that we have taken a keen interest in that and we’ve had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that. I would just say at this point, it’s inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural, but we don’t know for certain.»<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven today, I see them withholding information and I think we need to do more to continue to press them to share,\u201d Secretary of Defense Mark Esper<\/a> told \u201cAmerica\u2019s Newsroom<\/a>» on Wednesday, referring to China. Esper added that he wouldn’t speak to «intelligence reporting,» but that «most people believe it began naturally \u2014 it was organic, if you will. I think in due course, once we get through the pandemic we’re in right now, there’ll be time to look back and really ascertain what happened and make sure we have a better understanding so we can prevent this in the future.»<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources point to the structure of the virus, in saying the genome mapping specifically shows it was not genetically altered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to\u00a0«The Story<\/a>»\u00a0Wednesday evening,\u00a0Secretary of State<\/a>\u00a0Mike Pompeo remarked: «What we do know is we know that this virus\u00a0originated in Wuhan, China. We know there is the Wuhan Institute of Virology just a handful\u00a0of miles away from where\u00a0the wet market was.\u00a0There is still lots to learn. You should know that the United States government is\u00a0working diligently to figure it\u00a0out.»<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerning the State Department cables warning about the Wuhan laboratory, Pompeo said the installation «contained highly contagious materials \u2014 we knew that, we knew that they were working on this program, many countries have programs like this. In countries that are open and transparent, they have the ability to control them and keep them safe, and they allow outside observers in to make sure all the processes and procedures are right. I only wish that that had happened in this place.»<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, China’s<\/a> foreign ministry pushed back on the suspicion that the virus escaped from the facility, by citing statements from the World Health Organization that there is no evidence the coronavirus <\/a>came from a laboratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans were originally helping train the Chinese in a program called PREVENT well before the Chinese started working on this virus. The French government helped the Chinese set up the Wuhan lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China «100 percent» suppressed data and changed data, the sources tell Fox News. Samples were destroyed, contaminated areas scrubbed, some early reports erased, and academic articles stifled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

STATE DEPT LEAKED CABLES RENEW THEORIES ON ORIGINS OF CORONAVIRUS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were doctors and journalists who were «disappeared» warning of the spread of the virus and its contagious nature and human to human transmission. China moved quickly to shut down travel domestically from Wuhan to the rest of China, but did not stop international flights from Wuhan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, the sources tell Fox News\u00a0the World Health Organization (WHO)\u00a0was complicit from the beginning in\u00a0helping China<\/a>\u00a0cover its tracks.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump<\/a> announced<\/a> at the White House coronavirus<\/a> news briefing in the Rose Garden on Tuesday that the United States will immediately halt all funding for the WHO<\/a>, saying it had put «political correctness over lifesaving measures.» The United States is the WHO’s largest single donor<\/a>, and the State Department had previously planned to provide the agency $893 million in the current two-year funding period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior administrations separately tell Fox News the rollout of the president\u2019s \u201cblueprint for reopening the U.S. economy\u201d will happen Thursday afternoon, first for governors and then briefed to the press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Trump’s own handling of the crisis has come into focus. On January 24, for example, Trump tweeted in praise of China\u2019s \u201ctransparency<\/a>» on coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though they were not speaking for the president, the sources ventured an explanation, saying it was diplomatic talk to make the Chinese «feel good». while the investigation was ongoing, with trade and other talks happening simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TRUMP CUTS ALL WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION FUNDING<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day, Jan. 20. But by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and expert estimates based on retrospective infection data<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is tremendous,\u201d said Zuo-Feng Zhang, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. \u201cIf they took action six days earlier, there would have been much fewer patients and medical facilities would have been sufficient. We might have avoided the collapse of Wuhan\u2019s medical system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fox News’\u00a0Barnini Chakraborty and The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-china-compete-us-sources<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Get all the latest news on coronavirus and more delivered daily to your inbox.\u00a0Sign up here. EXCLUSIVE:\u00a0There is increasing confidence that the\u00a0COVID-19\u00a0outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory, though not as a bioweapon\u00a0but as part of China’s attempt\u00a0to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[362,357],"tags":[364,366,359,367,363],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/SARS_2_Collage_6.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10623"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10626,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10623\/revisions\/10626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}