Rubio Publishes Vast COVID-19 Report: ‘Beijing Hid The Truth’

Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Wire,

A new report by Sen. Marco Rubio concludes that “a serious biosafety incident” in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic. But the exhaustive study, which took two years to complete and includes vast translations of original Chinese language source material, reaches another, perhaps more troubling, verdict: They knew.

The document obtained early by RealClearPolitics paints a picture of a Chinese Communist Party so eager to make advancements in bioscientific research that officials in Beijing willfully and repeatedly ignored known safety shortcomings at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as early as July 2019. Then, once the pandemic that would eventually kill 7 million people started, they launched a “cover-up.”

Chinese officials have consistently called the lab leak hypothesis a lie, insisting that the theory is politically motivated and has no scientific basis. The Rubio report details, however, that as early as February 2020 China had launched a comprehensive effort to strengthen biosafety measures at the Wuhan lab and facilities around the country through new, stricter regulations.

“Just as Beijing was denying the possibility that COVID-19 came from a lab on the world stage,” according to the document authored by the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, “it was warning its own officials of such risks and rolling out new measures to prevent lab accidents.” Additionally, as China downplayed the danger, or even took steps to hide it and its origin from the world, they were quietly moving to protect themselves.

Scientists associated with the People’s Liberation Army filed a patent for a COVID-19 vaccine in February of 2020. According to research methodology reviewed by Rubio, they began work four months earlier in November of 2019. Beijing did not alert the World Health Organization of the outbreak of a virus “of unknown etiology” until January of 2020.

“The implications are impossible to ignore,” Rubio said in a statement. “Beijing hid the truth. This report reinforces the need to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable.”

The White House has repeatedly voiced frustration with China for its lack of transparency, and early in his tenure, President Biden ordered the director of national intelligence to conduct a 90-day inquiry into the origins of the virus. The intelligence community, however, was divided on the question when they turned in their findings in August of 2021, concluding that “a more definitive explanation” of the origin of the virus would “most likely” not be possible without cooperation from China.

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