Nearly a year to the day when the first COVID-19 cases were reported in China, Beijing emphasizes research into the origins of the pandemic, while promoting active marginal theories that it could have originated outside the country.
The government distributes grants to scientists – affiliated with the military – who are investigating the origin of the virus in southern China. It also monitors their findings and recommends that the publication of any data or research by a new task force led by China’s cabinet be approved under the direct orders of President Xi Jinping, according to an extensive investigation by the Associated Press.
A worker wearing a mask peeks out from behind a construction barrier with a notice depicting a bat pleading with people not to kill wildlife at Kunming airport in Yunnan province in southern China on Thursday, December 3, 2020 not to eat.
(AP)
As a result, very little has been disclosed and authorities are severely restricting information and hindering collaboration with international scientists.
“What did they find?” asks Gregory Gray, an epidemiologist at Duke University, who oversees a laboratory in China that studies the transmission of infectious diseases from animals to humans. “Maybe their data was not decisive, or they suppressed the data for some political reason.”
The AP’s investigation revealed a pattern of government secrecy and top-down control that delayed warnings about the pandemic, blocked the sharing of information with the World Health Organization and hampered early testing. Scientists familiar with China’s public health system say the same practices apply to sensitive research.
“They only choose people they can trust, those they can control,” said a public health expert working with the China CDC. “Military teams and others are working hard on this, but whether it is published depends on the outcome.”
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Some Chinese scientists believe that little has been shared simply because nothing of significance has been discovered. Although they controlled research in China, Chinese authorities promoted theories suggesting that the virus originated outside the country.
The government has nominated scientist Bi Yuhai of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to address research with origins with a $ 230,000 grant, according to records. A paper co-authored with Bi suggested that an outbreak in a Beijing market in June could have been caused by packaged frozen fish from Europe.
The Chinese-run media used the theory to suggest that the original outbreak in Wuhan could have started with seafood imported from abroad – an idea rejected by international scientists.
The Chinese government is also limiting and controlling the search for patient-zero by testing old flu samples.
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Chinese hospitals collect thousands of samples of patients with flu-like symptoms every week and place them in freezers. They could easily be retested for COVID-19, although politics could then determine whether the results would be announced, said Ray Yip, the founding director of the U.S. CDC office in China.
“They would be crazy not to do that,” Yip said. ‘The political leadership will wait until the information is seen, does this information make China look stupid or not? “If it makes China look stupid, they will not.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.