As the world marks five years since the devastating arrival of Covid-19, new revelations continue to emerge about the origins of the virus that brought global life to a standstill.
While Wuhan, a city few had heard of before 2020, is now etched into our memories as the epicentre of the pandemic, a growing number of experts and scientists are claiming that the virus was the result of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Alarmingly, some also allege that the United States played a role in covering up the outbreak.
A Sun investigation has claimed China’s attempt to blame a local wet market was part of a coordinated effort to conceal the truth about a potential biological weapon.
While publicly, many scientists dismissed the idea of a lab leak, behind the scenes, some were privately discussing the possibility.
One source said: ‘Watergate was nothing compared to this. This is the Chernobyl of biology.’
Dr. Robert Redfield, former head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that just months before the global outbreak, the Chinese military took control of the institute, wiping its databases and installing new systems.
He also pointed to reports of lab researchers falling ill as early as November 2019, well before the first cases of Covid-19 were publicly reported.
Medical workers take swab samples from residents to be tested for the COVID-19 coronavirus, in a street in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province on May 15, 2020
Medical staff treating patients infected by the COVID-19 coronavirus at a hospital in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province
Firefighters disinfect the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport on April 3, 2020 in Wuhan, Hubei Province
‘I think that’s when the pandemic started,’ Dr. Redfield said, adding that the situation quickly escalated into a ‘frenzied cover-up that was keeping Chinese President Xi Jinping awake at night.’
Dr. Redfield also spoke about efforts by former President Donald Trump to send a team to Wuhan to investigate the virus’s origins, only to be ignored by China.
The virologist pointed out that Covid-19 was ‘ready-made’ for human transmission, immediately raising concerns among experts about its origins.
The documentary also highlights the involvement of American funding in research at the Wuhan Institute.
Zoologist Peter Daszak, a key figure in investigating how diseases jump from animals to humans, was behind the EcoHealth Alliance, an organisation that secured millions of dollars in US government funding for virus research.
Daszak’s group proposed experiments that would manipulate viruses similar to the one that caused Covid-19, sparking serious questions about whether these experiments were conducted before the grant was even approved.
In January 2023, EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak were banned from receiving federal funding for five years after allegations that their research contributed to the outbreak.
However, the organisation has strongly denied any wrongdoing and insists that their work at the Wuhan Institute had no link to the pandemic.
Images of Wuhan Huanan South China Seafood Market.
This file photo taken January 25, 2020 shows medical staff members, wearing protective clothing at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan, as the city struggled with the outbreak of the once-mysterious virus
The idea of a lab leak theory was widely dismissed in the early stages of the pandemic, but it began to gain momentum, especially in the US and China.
Even scientists involved in the influential ‘Proximal Origins’ paper, which initially rejected the lab leak theory, began expressing doubts in private.
Emails obtained by investigative journalists revealed that some authors believed the virus appeared to have been ‘pre-adapted’ for human transmission.
In China, those attempting to uncover the truth about Covid-19 were reportedly threatened.
Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a whistleblower who previously worked for the World Health Organisation in Hong Kong, claimed she was forced to flee after investigating the virus.
She revealed that she had been warned to keep her findings a secret or face dire consequences.
Workers in protective suits take part in the disinfection of Huanan seafood market, where the novel coronavirus is believed to have first surfaced
Virologist Shi Zhengli (L) works in a lab of Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, 23 February 2017
Former US State Department official David Asher called the failure to properly investigate the virus’s origins the ‘biggest intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor.’
He compared the scandal to the Watergate scandal, adding that the cover-up surrounding Covid-19’s origins was nothing short of an ‘outrage.’
Asher also claimed that China had been looking into creating biological weapons and that the Covid-19 virus may have accidentally leaked as a result of a reckless programme.
‘I don’t think Covid was released as a weapon, but could it have been a laboratory accident? Absolutely,’ Asher said, calling for a 9/11-style commission to investigate the origins of the pandemic.
