Chinese defector has new theory on COVID origins
A Chinese defector has suggested the COVID-19 pandemic began after the virus was potentially leaked amongst participants of the military games in Wuhan in October 2019, months before the deadly outbreak was confirmed by China.
Defector and democracy campaigner Wei Jingsheng was speaking with Sky News journalist Sharri Markson for her new book What Really Happened in Wuhan.
He said thousands of athletes from around the world came to Wuhan for the Military World Games in October and this was likely the first superspreader event.
Jingsheng said: “I thought that the Chinese government would take this opportunity to spread the virus during the Military Games, as many foreigners would show up there,” he said.
He claims he was aware of Chinese authorities experimenting with "strange biological weapons", a tip off from a government source, and tried to warn the US but was unsuccessful.
Many athletes from different countries reported sickness
Multiple athletes from around the world later reported sickness and symptoms consistent with COVID-19.
Last month the US's Republican Foreign Affairs Committee released a report claiming Beijing was rushing to cover up the virus's spread around the time of the military games.
Republican Representative Michael McCaul said: "When they realised what happened, Chinese Communist Party officials and scientists at the WIV began frantically covering up the leak.”
"But their coverup was too late — the virus was already spreading throughout the megacity of Wuhan," he added.
China suggests other countries are responsible for COVID
China has pointed to overseas, including Italy, France and the US, where it says the virus was detected long before it reported its first official cases in December 2019 but Jingsheng’s theory provides an explanation for such cases.
The Communist Party of China has become angry over what it claims is a concerted effort from the West to smear China when it comes to the investigation of the origins of COVID.
Beijing has suggested it was the US who imported the virus to Wuhan during the military games, calling for investigations into its Fort Detrick facility.
Former US president Donald Trump suggest the evidence points to a lab leak
Former US president Donald Trump also spoke with Markson for her book and he claimed it’s “obvious” the virus had been leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Trump made a point of saying he didn’t think the virus was “intentionally” spread but that it escaped via an accidental leak.
“I don’t know if they had bad thoughts or whether it was gross incompetence, but one way or the other, it came out of Wuhan, and it came from the Wuhan lab,” Trump said.
Trump added one indication was the early emergence of stories filtering into his office about body bags being piled up outside the lab.
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also talked with Markson and he said there was “enormous, albeit indirect, evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the centrepoint for this.”
“The cumulative evidence that one can see points singularly to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he said.
Pompeo added the US has intelligence three scientists at the lab fell ill two months before the first cases of COVID were officially reported in December 2019.
Former US director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe says these scientists are now missing.
Another claim that was delivered to Trump was that a lab worker left for lunch and met his girlfriend, infecting her with the virus.
WHO chief calls for more investigation of the lab leak theory
Initially criticised for his soft approach with China, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus surprisingly questioned the findings of a joint mission into the origins of COVID earlier this year, calling for more to be done to investigate the lab leak theory.
Image: Getty Images and Sky News